With 15 events down and ten to go, europeantour.com looks at the facts and figures from the first part of the season…
Ricardo Santos may be the current Rankings leader but two Frenchman have won twice to the Portuguese’s once – Benjamin Hebert and Edouard Dubois the only two players so far with multiple victories.
Dubois set a number of records for the season with his triumph in the Kärnten Golf Open presented by Mazda, where he pipped Andrea Pavan to the title with two scintillating rounds over the weekend.
His 265, 23 under par total at Golf Club Klagenfurt-Seltenheim is the lowest so far in 2011, as is his final 36-hole total (128, -16) and final 54-hole total (195, -21). Italian Pavan’s opening round of nine under par 63 in Austria is one of the lowest of the season, as is his first 36 hole score of 127, (-17), but a loss of form in the last two rounds, coupled with the surging Dubois, denied him a maiden victory.
Dubois also made the biggest comeback by a winner over 36 holes (ten shots) and the joint largest for the last round (five shots) alongside Australia’s Andrew Tampion, who stormed to the top of the leaderboard with a 66 on the last day of the Telenet Trophy.
Dubois also won the Scottish Hydro Challenge, while Hebert’s triumphs came in consecutive weeks at the Credit Suisse Challenge and the English Challenge. The last time a player won back-to-back tournaments was in 2007, when Iain Pyman won the ECCO Tour Championship and then the Telia Challenge Waxholm the following week. Remarkably, Robert Dinwidddie did the same thing three weeks earlier, claiming back-to-back victories in the Scottish Challenge presented by Bank of Scotland Corporate and the Rolex Trophy.
The season-opening Gujarat Kensville Challenge in India has possibly been the toughest test, as the winning total of five under par 283 posted by Gaganjeet Bhullar is the highest of the campaign thus far. The cut mark, at seven over par 157, is also the highest of the season.
Matthew Zions’ seven shot win in the Saint-Omer Open presented by Neuflize OBC is the greatest margin of victory yet this year, and the Australian is one of nine first-time champions. Bhullar, Joaquin Estevez, Michiel Bothma, Nicolas Meitinger, Dubois, Santos, Jamie Moul and Hebert are the others.
Overall there have been eight new course records, and two events have had to be decided by a play-off – at the Abierto International Copa Antiquia where Estevez beat Charles-Edouard Russo at the first extra hole, and at the Allianz Challenge de France where Meitinger saw off Maximillian Kieffer at the second extra hole.
Rankings leader Santos has the most top ten finishes with seven from his 13 events, while Federico Colombo has six and Branden Grace and Moul both have five. Moul has the most top five finishes, with four, and Colombo is next with three.
There have been nine holes in one, remarkably two coming at the eighth hole of the Kärnten Golf Open presented by Mazda, the same hole Martin Wiegele aced two years running in the final round.
