The European Tour this week returns to Clube de Golf do Santo da Serra for the second time in four months, with the Madeira Islands Open – Portugal – BPI becoming the first replayed tournament in European Tour history.
Extreme weather conditions caused the cancellation of the original tournament in March with only one round completed. It was only the second time in European Tour history that a tournament failed to finish, following the 1998 Great North Open, but organisers moved quickly to rearrange the event, which counts towards both The Race to Dubai on The European Tour and the European Challenge Tour’s Road to Oman Rankings.
That means a second chance for current Road to Oman leader Ricardo Gouveia to claim victory on home soil and follow in the spike marks of compatriot Ricardo Santos, who triumphed in 2012 en route to winning the Sir Henry Cotton European Tour Rookie of the Year award that season.
Gouveia has made an impressive start to the 2015 Challenge Tour campaign, winning the AEGEAN Airlines Challenge Tour by Hartl Resort and twice finishing runner-up, in the Challenge de Madrid and on his last appearance in the D+D Slovakia Challenge.
Santos is one of four past champions in the field, along with Argentine pair Estanislao Goya and Daniel Vancsik and Sweden’s Jarmo Sandelin.
The reschedule tournament also gives Denmark’s Joachim B Hansen another shot at victory. He led the original tournament after an opening round of 68, and was in pole position when the event was cut to 36 holes before eventually being abandoned following a combination of heavy rain, strong winds and fog.
Madeira has proved a happy hunting ground for first-time winners on The European Tour, with 11 players claiming their maiden European Tour title at the tournament since it began in 1993.
