Given the frenzied nature of the build-up surrounding The Ryder Cup, The Challenge Tour thought it entirely appropriate to highlight its ever-growing influence on golf’s most exciting event.
Any tour that can lay claim to developing the careers of seven of Paul McGinley’s 12-man team to face the USA at Gleneagles in three weeks has earned a few bragging rights.
When Thomas Björn, Jamie Donaldson, Stephen Gallacher, Martin Kaymer, Ian Poulter, Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson line up against Tom Watson’s team USA they will continue the Challenge Tour’s rich Ryder Cup legacy, bringing the total number of former players to represent Europe to 23.
Of those 23, only two of this year’s three rookies – Donaldson and Gallacher – have blank records, with the other 21 having contributed a total of 51 points to the European cause since 1993, when Peter Baker, Joakim Haegmann and Costantino Rocca began the Challenge Tour’s Ryder Cup journey.
There have been varying degrees of Ryder Cup success and failure in that time, but the highlights are way brighter than the lows.
Who will ever forget Poulter’s summoning of the ‘Miracle of Medinah’, Rose’s slam-dunk from 50 feet against Phil Mickelson or Rocca’s sensational singles victory over Tiger Woods to help ensure Seve’s captaincy ended in victory at Valderrama?
The Challenge Tour’s former players have certainly delivered at the highest level.
For the current generation, those aspiring youngsters lining up at this week’s Open Blue Green Cotes d`Armor Bretagne, there is an immediate Ryder Cup link to associate themselves with.
One glance at the wall of past tournament results in the clubhouse of the Golf Blue Green de Pléneuf Val André on the coast of Brittany reveals that six former competitors have Ryder Cup experience, with three of those six – Donaldson, Victor Dubuisson and Edoardo Molinari – having played in the Open Blue Green Cotes d`Armor Bretagne before going on to qualify to represent Europe.
Tenuous? Perhaps. But tell that to the majority of the 156 players in the field this week. Nowhere is there more raw ambition and desire to succeed than on the Challenge Tour, and there will be many in this week’s field with genuine hopes of one day following that Ryder Cup path to glory.
What’s even better is the fact that a few of them will probably make it.
