Timo Vahlenkamp is one of five new faces from the Pro Golf Tour set to tee it up on the Challenge Tour next season after topping the Order of Merit in 2023.
The German ended the season in red-hot form, winning the penultimate event of the season – the FaberExposize Gelpenberg Open – before going on to triumph in a playoff at the season-ending Castanea Resort Championship.
The 25-year-old earns promotion to the Challenge Tour for the second time in three years, having finished top of the Pro Golf Tour Order of Merit for the first time in 2021.
Joining Vahlenkamp next season will be French duo Andoni Etchenque and Clement Guichard, German Christian Bräunig and Žan Luka Štirn from Slovenia.
Etchenque finished second in the Order of Merit thanks to two wins, which came at the EINBAY Red Sea Open in April and the Staan Open in August, and five other top ten finishes. He ended the season on 21,382 points, just 108 points behind eventual winner Vahlenkamp.
Guichard will also make the step up in 2023 having secured a maiden professional win in the Pro Golf Tour last term. That came at the Red Sea Egyptian Classic in March, which was sandwiched in between two other top ten finishes to kick-start his campaign.
Bräunig won the season-opening Red Sea Ain Sokhna Classic to boost his early chances of promotion and went on to secure his graduation to the Challenge Tour with a second victory which came at The Cuber Open.
Luka Štirn also registered two wins on his way to promotion, the first of which came in the Haugschlag NÖ Open by perfect eagle where a closing 66 saw him earn a maiden professional win. The 26-year-old would then go on to win the Stippelberg Open four months later.
