The 2024 Road to Mallorca will see 29 tournaments staged across three continents in 18 different countries, with the SDC Open kick-starting proceedings in South Africa from 11-14 February as one of four co-sanctioned events with the Sunshine Tour.
Kit Alexander has been part of the commentary team for the Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final supported by The R&A for the last two years live on Sky Sports, and as an expert in the field, ahead of the 2024 campaign getting under way, we spoke to get his thoughts and predictions for a busy 12 months.
Following the 2024 schedule being announced in December, the return of a Polish event on the Challenge Tour for the first time in 15 years is one that he believes is a huge positive.
“It’s a really big schedule for the players to look at and they now know what they’ve got in the diaries,” he said. “It’s a brilliant eight events starting with four in South Africa, two in India and two in the UAE. For the players, they’ll have eight tournaments under their belt before the season really gets going in Europe in May.
“I love the addition of the Polish event. Off the back of Adrian Meronk’s success where he came through the Challenge Tour and is now on to the PGA Tour, to have an event in Poland shows the importance of the Tour. It’s a developmental Tour for the players but it’s also worth remembering in many instances that it’s a developmental tour for new nations hosting tournaments.”
Meronk is one of several players to have started their ascent through the golfing ranks on the Challenge Tour following its creation in 1987. It’s a proven breeding ground for the next generation of golfing superstars, where the likes of 2023 Ryder Cup stars Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrell Hatton and Bob MacIntyre all began their journey.
Having watched first-hand the drama of the Rolex Challenge Tour Grand Final in Mallorca two months ago, Alexander was impressed by the quality of golf on display as the next generation earned promotion to the DP World Tour.
“My word has the Grand Final delivered over the last two years,” he added. “Last year it was so volatile and so many players had a chance. They stood up with their careers on the line and made it happen. It was pure drama.
“It shows that there’s huge strength in depth in golf. Those that finish inside the top 20 on the Challenge Tour, they now have enough experience of being a tour professional and enough quality and confidence to go and do it on the DP World Tour.
“You’ve seen already with the guys that got promoted what they could go on to do. Marco Penge, the Road to Mallorca Number One, came into the Grand Final outside the top 20 and ended up winning the whole thing which shows what a brilliant end to the season he had. Casey Jarvis made a really positive start to the DP World Tour season in South Africa, and Alex Fitzpatrick, we all know about his talent.
“You’re seeing more and more guys that get promoted are comfortable and ready to go, and ready to win on the DP World Tour from the get-go.”
Alexander has predicted a big year for some of the young up-and-coming stars to produce on the Challenge Tour this season but notes that historically experience plays a huge part across a long season.
“I’ve said it many times with the Challenge Tour, you might be looking for the next big thing, but you look at the Rankings at the end of the year and experience is important,” he added. “There are guys that are maybe dropping down that are looking to reignite their careers.
“Jeunghun Wang is a three-time winner on the DP World Tour, and was one of the quickest ever to get to three wins when he did it. He had to go away and do National Service and had a couple of top tens when he came back but didn’t quite do enough to retain his card on the DP World Tour.
“Alexander Levy - a five-time DP World Tour winner - got into the first few events of the DP World Tour season and has made three of four cuts, and had an eighth in the Australian Open. It’ll be interesting to see how much we’ll see of him on the Challenge Tour.
“Joakim Lagergren is another player I think just had an off year on the DP World Tour. He might get a mixture of DP World Tour and Challenge Tour starts, and Chris Wood, Ryder Cup player, we haven’t seen or heard from him in a while. I just have everything crossed that we can see a fit and healthy Chris Wood physically and mentally, and he can actually give it a go, because we all know the talent he’s got.”
Kit’s picks
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Road to Mallorca Number One: Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen
“I’m going to go with Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen. He’s going into his first full year as a pro at 24-years-old, and what he did last year was impressive.
“He had a seventh and a 12th on the DP World Tour on a couple of invites, and when he got his opportunities on the Challenge Tour, he had two tied fourths, a tenth and an 11th in just eight starts. He was playing courses he’d not seen before and was pulling out those kind of finishes.
“You see a lot of young guys do well on the Challenge Tour when they get their starts, but the seventh and the 12th on the DP World Tour is from him literally teeing it up for the first few times as a pro and getting himself in the mix.
“I think he’s someone that can hit the ground running and someone that could quite quickly become the next big thing.”
Dark Horse: David Nyfjäll
“David Nyfjäll sits a similar profile to Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen. He’ll be 25 by the season starts and had a really good amateur career.
“A contemporary of Ludvig Aberg and Vincent Norman – who are both winners on the DP World Tour – and he went through North Western University where there’s a really good golfing programme. He also qualified for the US Open last year where he made his debut as a pro.
“In six starts that he did get on the Challenge Tour last year, he had four top 20s including a tied sixth in his home country. I think Neergaard-Petersen is a little bit more ready, hence why I’m picking him as the slightly higher hope but I don’t think Nyfjäll is too far behind him. I can see both of them battling at the top of the Challenge Tour rankings this season.”
The promising ones: Martin Couvra and Oihan Guillamoundeguy
“I’m going to put two players in here. Martin Couvra is one. I’m very interested to see what he does this year.
“He’s just turned 21, so he’s still a young lad. He won on the Challenge Tour as an amateur last year and got a lot of starts because of that, and he snuck in to the Grand Final at the end of the season as well. He didn’t really kick on after that win, but I think he has the game to do so.
“The other one is another young Frenchman, the 19-year-old Oihan Guillamoundeguy. He finished fourth on the Alps Tour last year in his second full season so he’s already got a decent amount of experience under his belt. He’s won a couple of times too. I think he’ll do well stepping up.
“He’ll be coming in a bit under the radar and they’ll perhaps be other young players coming in with a little more hype around them but I think he’s got the game.”
Other ones to watch
“I was really impressed with what Brandon Robinson-Thompson did in 2023. He finished 22nd from only 12 events last year after getting hot on the Clutch Pro Tour.
“He made the cut at The Open and then won the Irish Challenge the week after in his first Challenge Tour start. I just think he’s a really interesting character as well. You’re never going to be bored watching him. Beneath the swagger, he’s a competitor too and he’s gritty. I’d be surprised if he’s not in and around the top 20.
“One final player I will mention is Wilco Nienaber. We know him, but he doesn’t have a full card on the DP World Tour. He’s bounced between the Sunshine Tour, the Challenge Tour and DP World Tour for the last three or four years now. We all know he hits a long way, we know the talent and potential is there but he has to start delivering at some point. This year he needs a win, and he’ll want to go into 2025 at a minimum knowing he’s got a DP World Tour card.”
