The prestigious Rolex Trophy is the longest-running tournament on the Challenge Tour, having formed part of the schedule ever since the tour’s inception in 1989.
Each year, an exclusive field assembles at Golf Club de Genève, with the top 42 players on the Road to Oman taking part in a pro-am format, unique in the Challenge Tour season.
Ahead of this week’s tournament, we’ve taken a look back over the previous 28 stagings for indicators of what we can expect from the notable performers in Geneva.
Graduate material
Last year, a staggering 13 of the top 15 in the Rolex Trophy went on to graduate from the Road to Oman at the end of the season, with only Dominic Foos and Darius van Driel not quite managing to finish high enough in the Rankings come the year’s end.
Winning the tournament has also proven to be a strong indicator of an imminent European Tour future – since 1995, only two Rolex Trophy champions (David Park in 1998 and Jens Dantorp in 2013) have not subsequently earned graduation at the end of that season, though Dantorp did claim a card at that year’s Qualifying School.
Perhaps surprisingly, only three winners of the Rolex Trophy have then gone on to top the Rankings at the end of the year – David Jones in 1991, Carl Suneson in 1999 and Marc Warren in 2005.
Promotion prospects
The relative lack of Rankings winners to have triumphed at the Rolex Trophy is partly explained by the next stat: three players have claimed a third win of the season in Geneva, thus earning immediate promotion to the European Tour.
Had they remained on the Road to Oman, there is a good chance that Nacho Elvira (2015), Kristoffer Broberg (2012) or Benjamin Hebert (2011) would have gained enough points to have won the season-long Rankings as well.
It reinforces the prestigious nature of the tournament, though, that the best players in those seasons have crowned their outstanding campaigns with victory at the Rolex Trophy.
European Tour winners
One year ago, Dylan Frittelli’s dramatic finale – driving the green on the 16th for a tournament-sealing eagle – earned him the honours in Geneva; now, he is already a European Tour winner.
The South African took his maiden title at the Lyoness Open powered by Greenfinity+ in June and subsequently played in both The Open Championship and the US PGA Championship, cementing his fast rise to the top of world golf.
Frittelli is merely the latest Rolex Trophy luminary to transfer that success to the biggest stages, with past winners Byeong Hun An (2014), Broberg, Julien Quesne (2009) and Warren all also having triumphed in the Race to Dubai.
But heading them all is 2006 Rolex Trophy champion Alex Noren, one of the form players in world golf over the past couple of seasons and, following his victory at the BMW PGA Championship in May, the winner of an impressive nine European Tour titles.
Who will win?
Looking at the breakdown of previous champions does not immediately offer too many clues as to who should be considered a favourite to triumph this week.
Mark Tullo is the only past winner in the field, though only three players – Ronald Stelten (1989 and 1992), Stuart Little (1994 and 2001) and Suneson (1995 and 1999) – have won the Rolex Trophy twice.
The 28 tournaments have been won by 25 players from 12 different countries, with seven Englishmen just edging out the six Swedes – though perhaps that offers encouragement to the likes of Simon Forsström, Marcus Kinhult, Mikael Lundberg, Joel Sjöholm and Oscar Stark.
Other successful nationalities are: Spain (three wins); France, Ireland, USA (two wins each); Chile, Finland, Scotland, South Africa, South Korea and Wales (one win each).
