Andrew's Hotel Planner Tour Season Preview

This is the second of my season previews for Out of the Rough, coming some six weeks after the Korn Ferry Tour preview. Obviously, the Hotel Planner Tour season starts later, but there’s also been a degree of scheduling chaos – I had a version of this written bemoaning the lack of an Indian swing – two events went back into the calendar this week, which was very welcome but played merry hell with the editing of this article. We’ll have to hope there are no major changes, and we’ll follow the same format as the KFT article, looking first at the schedule, then at the expected fields, then picking a few players to keep an eye on for the year, before wrapping up with a few bold predictions. This is a quick primer for anyone new to following the support tours.

Schedule

The full schedule (and I think this is now broadly complete, but for a few course announcements) is here. With the aforementioned return of the Indian events to the calendar, the “shape” of the season is effectively the same as last year – four events in South Africa, two in Indian and two in the Middle East, a long summer in Europe, and then two restricted-field events in China and the season-ending Grand Final at Alcanada on Majorca at the end of October.

There are, however, quite a few differences. I’ll do my best to summarise them:

• The Cadiz event is now a Catalunya event, hosted at Fontanals Golf Club – the Challenge de Espana is still at Isla Canela, meaning that two of the events are held at stage two Q-school hosts, curiously.

• There’s a return to England, with the England Golf Challenge in Worcestershire (at the Vale, a modern but highly-regarded and very long course that will be different to most things on this tour) and the English Challenge at The Caversham in Berkshire.)

• More excitingly, we see a first ever HPT event in Estonia! I know nothing about the course but look forward to watching recent Open Qualifier Richard Teder taking high order. In sadder news, this does mean that the Dutch Futures event, a fun and different course, is out of the rotation.

• We’re seeing lots of events shuffled around the calendar (the Italian event has moved from September to May, for instance.)

• There are also lots of different courses. The first Indian event will be in Ahmedabad rather than Kolkata, a move of some 2,000km. I’m sad to see the Danish Golf Challenge move to a comparatively orthodox course and I’m sad that we still don’t see a true links course (the Irish Challenge is at Killeen Castle again, and I still mourn the NI Open, last staged on this Tour in 2024 at Galgorm.) I am, however, pleased that the South African swing finishes at Durban CC, a big step up from Pecanwood.

Fields

One advantage of such a long season is that the co-sanctioned events that start the season (four with the Sunshine Tour and two with the PGTI) make up a comparatively small part of the season. Whilst the Chinese events are also co-sanctioned these are effectively limited-field events for the players who are leading the standings after the long European swing. That said, there is an undoubted advantage for the players who have a high enough category ranking to make it into the early-season events, or for the players who hold status on the Sunshine Tour and thus get starts in the first four events. By winning the first two events last year, Daniel van Tonder all but wrapped up his 2026 DPWT card before a number of leading competitors had started their seasons.

The reality is that we’re dealing with two very different standards of co-sanctioned events. In South Africa, local players (albeit often with HPT status) make up about 50-percent of the top tens in most events, and had three of the four winners last year and all four in 2023 (if you include Zimbabwe, part of the Sunshine Tour, as local.) In India, we saw just three golfers make the top ten from the three events. So we’ll see four very tough events, two slightly easier ones, and then as we reach the Middle East we settle into the main group. Each event will have local players, of course, but the core fields should be pretty consistent.

One further wrinkle is the players drifting between the two tours – that is, those with low status on the DPWT who have to weigh up occasional starts, and the chance of real financial returns and the chance to tie up DPWT cards, against consistent point-scoring on the HPT and the longer-term prospect of a DPWT card. With the DPWT cards issued to so many players, including many who play on both sides of the Atlantic through the summer, this issue won’t go away. The likes of Q-school graduates and last year’s weaker HPT graduates will have to make some very tough decisions. 

The bulk of HPT members after invitations are either players who performed well in Q-school but didn’t get a DPWT card (or don’t have a start that week,) players who narrowly missed retaining their cards on the DPWT last season, those missing the top twenty on last year's HPT but still performing well, and the top performers from the three satellite Tours (that is, the Alps Tour, Pro Golf Tour and Nordic Golf League.) It is likely that the MENA Tour will be integrated in some way but I don’t believe that’s yet known. There are also limited places available for recent professionals who have excelled in amateur events. History suggests that graduates are most likely to come from second- or third-season HPT players making their way up through the ranks, former DPWT players recovering from a "dip” and players who showed excellence in Q-school, and that the groups are likely to provide numbers in roughly that order.

The Fields

It isn’t easy to pick just a few names from the entire list of possibilities, and I am sure that I’ll be backing more players than just these. However, of last year’s HPT “nearly men” I am particularly sweet on the chances of Palmer Jackson, a winner last year, of the talented Kiwi Sam Jones and (regular readers will be unsurprised to learn) of Ernie Els’ sweet-swinging relative, Jovan Rebula. 

I think that the group of players dropping down from the DPWT is very solid this season and could dominate the cards being handed out. In particular I would expect to see Davis Bryant comfortably winning his card as he’ll pick up far more starts on the HPT than he did in a split season last year. Conor Purcell lost his way badly in his rookie year on the DPWT but was terrific at this level two years ago and will absolutely be one to watch if he shows signs of returning to form, whilst Matthew Southgate, Robin Williams and Hamish Brown could all be too good for this level, as could Calum Tarren. 

Of the various talents emerging from the satellite tours, history suggests that the Nordic Golf League is the place to look and Adam Wallin picked up four wins and eight other top-five finishes last year. He was ordinary in his few starts on the HPT but, just 24, can settle in and go far better this year. 

Finally, we can expect to see a few South Africans appearing towards the top of this list, and although Williams and Rebula have already been mentioned, there are any number who could win one of the first four events and parlay that into a successful northern hemisphere summer. I would watch those winners very closely indeed.

Predictions

• Last year we saw three Italians, three Scots, three Spaniards and three Swedes win cards. This year we’ll see the South Africans top the “national list” with Sweden once again bolstering their DPWT numbers. Watch out for the next generation of French talent, too.

• Dominic Clemons is one of the amateurs with an HPT card courtesy of the Global Amateur Pathway. He’ll win an event this year but not his DPWT card.

• There will be more returning DPWT players than rookies among the HPT graduates next year.

• Look out for the local players in both China and India to perform better than in any recent season. We might well get a winner in one of the four events.

• Adam Wallin will qualify and will be the most talked-about graduate going into next year. Look for Jovan Rebula and Matthew Southgate to be right up there, as well.

• Topping the qualification list will be an American for the first time ever. It’ll be Dan Erickson.