Andrew's German Challenge (HPT) Preview
- Andrew
- Jul 7
- 5 min read
The boys on the HotelPlanner Tour will doubtless be looking forward to a break next week, as there is no event opposite The Open. As the KFT boys are also relaxing next week (other than those heading to Puntacana) I also get a welcome week off. Before that, though, there’s a second event to cover this week, and I’m casting my eye over the German Challenge.
That comes hot on the heels of a second week in France, and Le Vaudreuil, as ever, produced an event that was popular with the players and gave us a decent leaderboard. I didn’t find Julien Sale (others did, led by Ben Coley) but as a local player with bags of experience on this tour and lots of others (NCAA, DPWT, Asian, Alps) and plenty of talent, he wasn’t a shocking winner. He’s known as a strong putter more than anything else and is nicely set up to win a DPWT card for the first time if he can maintain this momentum. Certainly, you’d like his chances in the Chinese events towards the end of the year given his experience playing out there.
Hamish Brown, Kristian Krogh Johannessen, Adam Wallin and Pablo Ereno were all within four of the lead and remain the class of the tour this year, in my eyes at least. Meanwhile, my own picks were genuinely dreadful, with only longshot Robin Sciot-Siegrist making the cut, and he was too inconsistent to threaten. Let’s hope for better as we go again.
The Tournament
The German Challenge was for many years sponsored by Big Green Egg, who make barbecues that I lust after and cannot justify purchasing. They’re now sponsored by VcG, which is a very acceptable abbreviation because nobody wants to type Vereinigung clubfreier Golfspieler. That’ll be the association of club-free golfers, which is a way that you can play a bunch of different clubs in Germany without the need for club dues. Lovely. Anyway, that’s changed, and not much else has. I looked at this event last year, and it has been held at Wittelsbacher Golf Club in Neuberg, which is on the Danube in Bavaria since the first event in 2021. In that time we’ve seen wins from Alejandro del Rey, Angel Hidalgo, Rasmus Neergard-Petersen and JC Ritchie, who smashed the field (by eight) and the tournament record (by seven) to win at -24.
Hidalgo and del Rey, in particular, give you an indication of what’s needed here – power. This is a long course, at 7,479 yards for a par-72 without much altitude. The penultimate hole, in particular, is a brute as an uphill 483 yard par-4 that played well over par last year. With two drivable par-4s (the ninth and twelfth,) a 627 yard par-5 and three par-4s over 450 yards, this is a typical PGA test of length but out of the ordinary on the HPT. In fact, we’re increasingly seeing the DPWT move towards tight, fiddly tests, especially for the portions of the season when the stars are over on the PGA events, and the HPT has long fed a diet chiefly of similar courses. Germany has long been an exception and the introduction of the English Open at the Vale was a welcome second course playing to length as a strength. I’ll be looking for course form as well as form at the English Open for a guide here.
More than power, there isn’t much obvious insight that I can give. There's nothing in the weather forecast to alter opinions. We haven’t particularly seen an advantage for players who are iron-players, scramblers, or putters, and nor have we seen much in the way of home advantage. We have seen good players go well here, and whilst it is all too easy to reverse engineer this, we knew that Ritchie and Neergard-Petersen were among the classiest players on the tour before they won, whilst del Rey had three previous top tens in his year, as did Hidalgo, who’d also won on the Alps Tour, and 2023 winner Francesco Laporta was only 18 months off coming second on the DPWT in Dubai. So I’m looking for some evidence of real class, as well as power.
The Selections
There’s a real problem with that pair of criteria; it essentially describes the top of the market. If you want to back Ereno, Johannessen, or Ereno I certainly wouldn’t seek to put you off. I’m less convinced by the case of Kieran Vincent at the prices, but he’s certainly got the power and the international experience. However, I do have a pair of outsiders I particularly like which made it easier to swerve those names.
From the top of the market, however, I can’t ignore Adam Wallin, who is doing everything apart from winning at this level and seems certain to change that soon. He’s got five top ten finishes from his ten starts on the HPT, as well as a Nordic Golf League win this year (he had three of those last season) and was a disappointing absentee from the English Open. He’s going very well at some of the courses that shouldn’t suit – including sixth at Interwetten and eighth last week – and now gets to play a course that will suit ideally. We know that the rest of his game is in good order, we know he can smash the logo off the ball, and we know that he’s a proven winner on a satellite tour. It’s time for him to get his first win here and put himself in the driver’s seat for a DPWT card.
First of my outsiders is Sam Jones, who I’ve been thinking about for this event for a while now. I’ve always had a soft spot for this Kiwi left-hander who was an amateur (and a good one) for a long time before winning a spot at DPWT Q-school and turning pro at 27. Whilst he didn’t achieve much in his year on the DPWT in 2024, he did finish 23rd in driving distance (ahead of the likes of Ludvig Aberg, Sam Bairstow and Gavin Green) and grabbed a couple of top ten finishes. Back on the HPT for the last year and a half, he hasn’t done much, but he did finish 18th in this event last year and 23rd in the English Open. Finally, his price also reflects a lowly 44th placed finish in le Vaudreuil last week, but I suspect the bookies don’t realize that he picked up a two-stroke penalty for playing the wrong ball on the green, and that he actually played pretty well other than that bizarre incident. He’s a long price for a reason but I haven’t lost faith that he’s good enough to pop up and win one of these events, and this course, with signs of a return to form, could just be ideal.
Finally, I’m taking a player I didn’t think I’d be backing, simply because the price is too good to ignore. Fred Biondi is a golfer I just can’t get away from backing, and I think him turning up here is a big deal. He’s been on the DPWT this season since winning his card at Q-School (and making me some money on the way) after a few years in the wilderness since turning pro. Looked at another way, it is three years since he was the NCAA champion and that kind of class doesn’t just go away without injury. Playing the HPT is a real drop in class for him, and whilst he is definitely struggling with his game he’s shown before that he can score when he’s in a position to win. I think this long, conventional test and comparatively weak opposition can serve as a confidence boost and that he can make a mockery of his odds.
Adam Wallin, 22/1
Sam Jones, 125/1
Fred Biondi, 150/1
All 1pt e/w, ¼ odds 4 places, Bet365. Better odds may come available as other markets open (though, for Wallin, I doubt it).
Comments