The Road to Mallorca continues this week with the German Challenge powered by VcG, taking place from July 17-20 at Wittelsbacher Golfclub. Here’s all you need to know…
Wittelsbacher Golfclub
The tree-lined challenge of Wittelsbacher Golfclub awaits the 156-strong field this week, and it’s a club steeped in history but maybe not in the way you would expect. The horses of Bavarian royalty were once bred on the land that now houses the 6,775 metre championship course, before it was transformed by Dutch architect Joan Frederik Dudok Van Heel in 1988. The 18-hole course starts and ends with a par five, and with the par four 17th playing as the hardest hole 12 months ago, Wittelsbacher sets up to provide some late drama on Sunday.
Fifth edition
This year marks the fifth edition of the German Challenge powered by VcG having first hosted the event back in 2021, and it’s a tournament that has produced some notable winners in that time. In the first edition Spaniard Angel Hidalgo carded four consecutive rounds of 68 to win by two shots and has since gone on to become a DP World Tour winner. The same can be said for his compatriot, Alejandro Del Rey, who triumphed in a play-off the following year. In 2023 Italian Francesco Laporta returned to the winner’s circle for the first time in almost four years, with a seven under par total enough to get it done. Last year was also a memorable one, with Dane Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen earning a third win of the season and automatic promotion to the DP World Tour. He would also end the year as the Road to Mallorca Number One.
HotelPlanner boost
HotelPlanner were announced as Title Partner of the now HotelPlanner Tour back in January, in a multi-year partnership which sees players compete for a record total prize fund of over €9,000,000 this season. For the first time in the Tour’s history, each European event will also have a minimum prize fund of €300,000. That’s not all though. The winner of the German Challenge powered by VcG will receive £10,000 worth of HotelPlanner vouchers – the second of six events on the Road to Mallorca that will offer the reward.
A new Number One
Maximilian Steinlechner arrives in Germany as the new Road to Mallorca Number One off the back of two exceptional weeks in Europe. A maiden HotelPlanner Tour title came on home soil, in the Interwetten Open in Austria two weeks ago, before he followed that up with a tied second finish last week in the Czech Republic. Steinlechner becomes just the third player to hit the summit of the Rankings this season, following in the footsteps of two-time winners this term, Danial van Tonder from South Africa and Italian Renato Paratore. A win this week would see him all-but guarantee his promotion to the DP World Tour.
