With the 57° Open de Portugal @ Morgado Golf Resort edging ever-nearer, we have picked out three men who could reign supreme on Sunday evening.
José-Filipe Lima
A winner already this season, Portugal’s Lima is currently in possession of a top 15 spot on the Road to Mallorca and it is not something he will be too keen to relinquish. A final round 66 earned him his fifth Challenge Tour title at the Vierumäki Finnish Challenge – his first victory in three years – and he is now geared up for a late-season fight for a return to the European Tour. Sitting 6,000 points inside the top 15, a win on home soil this week would all but wrap up a top 15 berth.
Grégory Havret
Frenchman Havret is a seasoned performer having played on the European Tour for 17 consecutive seasons from 2001, but returned to the Challenge Tour for the first time since the turn of the millennium having lost his playing privileges last year. The 42-year-old had a solid start to the season, finishing in the top 20 six times in his first ten starts. However, since his tied fourth finish at the Euram Bank Open, Havret has missed two out of four cuts and currently sits 15th on the Road to Mallorca, narrowly inside the graduation spots. Class, as they say, is permanent and a return to form this week would be timely with the season edging towards its climax.
Ben Stow
If you are looking for Mr Consistent, look no further than Ben Stow. The Englishman has missed only two Challenge Tour cuts this season – in back-to-back weeks at the D+D REAL Slovakia Challenge and Le Vaudreuil Golf Challenge – and has finished outside the top 20 on just two further occasions. That means, therefore, that he has finished in the top 20 eight times, five of which were top tens and that includes successive tied fifth finishes at the Swiss Challenge Presented by Swiss Golf and the Hauts de France – Pas de Calais Golf Open. That excellent run of form means the 27-year-old is 24th on the Road to Mallorca, with a dart up the Rankings well within his sights.
