As anticipation builds towards another week at Al Mouj Golf for the Challenge Tour’s season-ending NBO Golf Classic Grand Final, we look back on some of the most notable performances at the tournament over the years, starting with Ricardo Gouveia’s remarkable 2015 victory.
Two years ago, the Challenge Tour arrived in Muscat for the third successive season, with the tournament elevated to Grand Final status for the first time and the year-long points race christened the Road to Oman.
One man had dominated for much of the year going into the final event: Ricardo Gouveia. The Portuguese youngster had taken a breakthrough maiden victory at the end of 2014 at the EMC Golf Challenge Open and carried that confidence into the new season.
Another win followed at the AEGEAN Airlines Challenge Tour hosted by Hartl Resort, cementing a strong start to 2015 that had already featured a run of five successive top ten finishes.
Four further top threes meant Gouveia held the Number One position heading to the NBO Golf Classic Grand Final, but Sebastien Gros’ victory in the lucrative Kazakhstan Open meant it was far from certain that Gouveia’s consistency would be recognised with the deserved Rankings crown.
A year that featured only one missed cut, and until that point had included an impressive 11 top tens in 17 tournaments, still needed one last push to achieve the glory it merited – and that week in Muscat, Gouveia delivered.
It might have been easy to lack motivation, with European Tour golf long secured for the following season. Gouveia could have left the worrying and stresses of the week to others, on the cusp of the top 15. Instead, he showed what a true champion he is.
A solid start, with two rounds of 67, looked to have been slightly derailed by a four over par third round of 76, though conditions on Moving Day in Muscat were treacherous, with strong winds gusting in off the sea and blowing many off course.
It is often said how it all comes down to the back nine on the final day, and Gouveia could not have chosen a more impressive stage to prove this point – five straight birdies after the turn took him to 13 under par and set a clubhouse target nobody else could match.
The guttural roar of both relief and delight he unleashed as his winning putt dropped signalled the crowning of the most dominant player in a single Challenge Tour season in history – his €251,592 total winnings for the year sealed the Road to Oman Rankings top spot and beat Edoardo Molinari’s previous 2009 record by more than €8,000.
The stats still make for incredible reading: 18 tournaments played, 17 cuts made, 12 top tens including two victories, three runner-up finishes and two third places. By the end of the season he was as high as 84th in the Official World Golf Ranking, despite only really competing on the Challenge Tour.
But it was at Muscat, at the NBO Golf Classic Grand Final, that Gouveia’s legend was truly sealed – it is now over to the 2017 crop to make their own memories in two weeks’ time.
