Two wins, three runner-up finishes and four other top tens. It was a phenomenal 2018 season for Joachim B. Hansen, who became the first Dane to win the European Challenge Tour Rankings since Thomas Bjørn in 1995.
The 28 year old, who previously competed on the European Tour in 2013, 2014 and 2016, produced some of the finest golf of his career on the 2018 Road to Ras Al Khaimah, where he sat inside the top 15 for 28 of a possible 31 weeks.
His trophy-winning campaign got off to an unassuming start — a missed cut by five shots at the season-opening Barclays Kenya Open – but Hansen bounced back quickly and in his next appearance, at the Belt and Road Colourful Yunnan Open, he finished in a tie for second place.
The upward trend would continue, and in just his third outing of the year, he found the winners’ circle at the Turkish Airlines Challenge, which marked his first Challenge Tour win in four seasons of competition on the second-tier circuit.
Hansen’s hot streak continued in Aviemore where he finished as a runner up at the SSE Scottish Hydro Challenge hosted by Macdonald Hotels & Resorts, before returning to his homeland the next week where he would put in the standout performance from his stellar 2018 campaign.
A commanding five-stroke win on home soil at the Made In Denmark Challenge presented by Ejner Hessel solidified the Dane’s position at the top of the Rankings – a position he never relinquished. In the end, the Road to Ras Al Khaimah Number One finished the season with €222,320.
Now back on Europe’s top tier Hansen is well-placed to challenge the world’s elite.
