Five Challenge Tour graduates to watch out for on the DP World Tour in 2025

The DP World Tour season may be just five events into a new campaign, but it hasn’t taken long for the European Challenge Tour’s Class of 2024 to make an impact.

After earning automatic promotion to the DP World Tour in September with his third victory of the Challenge Tour season, John Parry claimed his first victory on the DP World Tour for 14 years at the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open.

The Englishman, who finished second on the Road to Mallorca last season, had already produced two top ten finishes on his return to the DP World Tour, with his victory securing him top spot on the Opening Swing Rankings.

But he isn’t the only the Challenge Tour graduate to have impressed so far on the Race to Dubai.

With fellow three-time winner Rasmus Neergard-Petersen and Robin Williams earning a higher exemption category through their DP World Tour performances last season, 22 players earned cards after last month’s Challenge Tour Grand Final supported by The R&A.

Here, we pick out five Challenge Tour graduates from the 2024 cohort to watch out for on the DP World Tour in 2025.

Angel Ayora

• Age: 20

• 2024 Road to Mallorca ranking: 4

• Official World Golf Ranking (as of December 23th): 189

The Spaniard only turned professional after the 2023 Eisenhower Trophy but has not taken long to settle in the paid ranks. After beginning the 2024 Challenge Tour season playing on invites, he would end the year fourth in the rankings, recording a breakthrough professional win at the Rosa Challenge Tour and six other top tens. Among those were back-to-back runner-up finishes at the Hangzhou Open and Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final, and he has maintained that momentum into the early stages of the 2025 DP World Tour season. With two top tens in his first four starts on the DP World Tour, the 20-year-old sits tenth on the Race to Dubai Rankings and has broken into the top 200 in the Official World Golf Ranking. While he may be the youngest Challenge Tour graduate from the Class of 2024, his ability appears to match his big ambitions in the game.

Hamish Brown

• Age: 26

• 2024 Road to Mallorca ranking: 5

• Official World Golf Ranking (as of December 23th): 231

Golf is in Brown’s blood, with his Scottish father, Marcus, being the club professional at Aalborg in Denmark. He first made his debut on the Challenge Tour as a 17-year-old in 2016, but it wasn’t until 2023 when he started competing regularly at that level as he finished 83rd at the end of that season. But in his first full campaign, he was a picture of consistency. Two titles in the Czech Republic and China coupled with just one missed cut saw him finish fifth on the season-long Road to Mallorca Rankings to earn his rookie DP World Tour campaign. After opting to miss the Australian double-header at the start of the 2025 Race to Dubai, he held a share of the 36-hole lead at the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open before finishing tied 16th to go along with his top 30 finish at the Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa.

Joel Moscatel

• Age: 26

• 2024 Road to Mallorca Ranking: 10

• Official World Golf Ranking (as of December 23th): 322

After turning professional in 2020, Moscatel played three seasons on the Alps Tour with a best finish of second before earning full Challenge Tour playing privileges by making the cut at the 2023 Qualifying School. The Spaniard made a slow start to the campaign before registering a top ten in the UAE and following that with a first professional win at the Challenge de España. Another top ten followed in Denmark and just over a month later he was a winner once more in France via a play-off and, although he could not claim the third annual triumph that would have earned him early promotion to the DP World Tour, he comfortably secured his card. Since then, the 26-year-old has bounced back from missing the cut on his first two starts in Australia by securing some Race to Dubai points at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open to head into the new year with optimism.

Did You Know?

Last season, 16 of the 21 Challenge Tour graduates kept their DP World Tour card and three of them, Matteo Manassero, Jesper Svensson and Frederic Lacroix, earned victories on the 2024 Race to Dubai. Six of the 2023 Challenge Tour graduates also finished inside the top 50 on the Race to Dubai Rankings, while Manassero and Svensson earned dual membership with the PGA TOUR for 2025.

Brandon Robinson-Thompson

• Age: 32

• 2024 Road to Mallorca Ranking: 18

• Official World Golf Ranking (as of December 23th): 263

Born in the Isle of Wight, Robinson-Thompson played collegiate golf at the University of South Carolina-Aiken from 2013-16. After turning professional in 2017 he played on several tours, including the PGA Tour Latinoamérica, but it wasn’t until 2023 that his breakthrough truly came. He won an event in Egypt on the MENA Tour and the Northern Ireland Open on the Clutch Pro Tour. He came through Final Qualifying at Royal Porthcawl to earn his place at The 151st Open Championship at Royal Liverpool, where he finished solo 59th. A week later he would win the Irish Challenge on the Challenge Tour on an invite. And while he narrowly missed out on earning a DP World Tour card at the end of the year, he would go on to qualify for the U.S. Open before truly igniting his 2024 campaign by finishing third on his title defence in Ireland and then winning his second Challenge Tour title in Scotland. While he has only made two starts since his graduation to the DP World Tour, he showed his potential at this level with back-to-back top 20s in the Czech Republic and Denmark earlier in the year.

Martin Couvra

• Age: 21

• 2024 Road to Mallorca Ranking: 17

• Official World Golf Ranking (as of December 23th): 349

With his victory at the Challenge de España in September 2023, Couvra became only the seventh player in history to win on the Challenge Tour as an amateur. Earlier that year, the Frenchman became the first European to win all three of South Africa’s major amateur titles in one season. In his first full campaign on the Challenge Tour, and as a professional for that matter, he registered seven top tens to finish 17th on the Road to Mallorca Rankings. The latter of those came at the Challenge Tour Grand Final to seal promotion to the DP World Tour. A top ten at Leopard Creek in the Alfred Dunhill Championship earlier this month signalled his ability to contend at this level and he is another rookie who will be hoping to adjust quickly to new courses and countries.