The Road to Mallorca travels to Sweden for the first time this season as the Indoor Golf Group Challenge takes place at Landeryds Golfklubb - Vesterby Links. Here’s everything you need to know before play gets under way on Thursday.
Vesterby Links
The Indoor Golf Group Challenge returns to Vesterby Links for the second year running. Last year’s tournament saw German Maximillian Rottluff top the leaderboard to secure his second title of the season, en-route to a top 20 finish on the Road to Mallorca Rankings and promotion to the DP World Tour.
The par-71 parkland layout is one of three courses run by Landeryds Golfklubb – one of Sweden’s largest golf facilities – and is well known for its raised fescue greens, which are kept firm and fast throughout the year and were inspired by the architectural styles of Old Tom Morris and Harry Colt, amongst others.
The 6,800-yard course features par five opening and closing holes and the back nine offers a particularly varied layout, with a trio of par threes, fours and fives on the scorecard.
Indoor Golf Group
Title sponsor Indoor Golf Group was established in 2019 to grow the game in Sweden by providing year-round access to golf, and it has quickly become a leader in European indoor golf, currently operating more than 20 centres around Sweden featuring 130 Trackman simulators.
Last year, the Group launched the inaugural IGG Winter Challenge – an indoor simulator golf competition organised with the Cutter & Buck Tour and Ahlsell Nordic Golf Tour – with the leading three players, Swedes Oliver Gillberg, Per Längfors, and Rasmus Rosin, earning invitations into this year’s Indoor Golf Group Challenge.
As well as growing the game in Sweden, Indoor Golf Group also provides support to elite Swedish talent to progress through the professional ranks. Sponsored players include 2023 Challenge Tour graduates Adam Blommé and Jesper Svensson, who has already joined the DP World Tour winner’s circle after triumphing at the 2024 Porsche Singapore Classic.
A packed field
Teeing it up at Vesterby Links this week will be a host of DP World Tour winners, including five-time winner Alexander Levy from France and Englishman Chris Wood, who has three titles as well as a Ryder Cup appearance at Hazeltine National Golf Club in 2016.
Joining them as part of a strong contingent of local players are all four Swedish winners so far on the 2024 Road to Mallorca in Mikael Lindberg, Björn Åkesson, Joakim Lagergren, and Christofer Blomstrand, who secured his maiden Challenge Tour title at the Vierumäki Finnish Challenge supported by Finnish Golf Union last week.
Also in the field this week are plenty of in-form players from the Nordic Golf League, one of the satellite tours to the Challenge Tour, including 2024 Order of Merit leader Albin Bergström and Jesper Sandborg, who secured his maiden Nordic Golf League title at Vesterby Links earlier this year with a three-stroke victory at the PGA Championship Landeryd Masters.
