Andrew's Rosa Challenge (HPT) Preview
Yet another confounding week on the HPT is in the books, with Christofer Blomstrand leading home a Swedish one-two in their home event on this tour, albeit at a new course. Blomstrand recently won the Scottish Challenge and, with five other top 15 finishes, has ascended to the top of the Road to Majorca rankings. The 34-year-old has been solid in previous seasons on the HPT (winning the Finnish event in 2024 and finishing in the top 100 nine times,) but he’s never looked like a dominant golfer. He’s playing well, of course, but the fact that this is his best year since 2018 (second at Green Eagle, eighth in Joburg when playing a full year on the DPWT) speaks also to a weak HPT field. It’ll be interesting to see what he does when returning to DPWT status next year.
Meanwhile, two of our selections disappointed enormously, as did a number of fancied golfers in what was a strange week. Jonathan Goth-Rasmussen continued to demonstrate that he’s an excellent golfer in poor weather and grabbed a chopped place for us, having threatened periodically to get in amongst the leaders. I don’t believe we yet know whether this course will return to host the Dormy Open next year, but if it does I’ll be keeping an eye on longer hitters and also watching for the weather forecast. Let’s move forward.
The Tournament
Yes, the HPT is still rumbling on and it ought to be noticed in a quiet week for professional golf. The Rosa Challenge has an excellent reputation among players and the media as a good course and a well-run event. It is the biggest tournament in Poland and it is unusual for the Challenge Tour/Hotel Planner Tour in that it hasn’t, yet, led to a notable increase in the number of Polish golfers appearing in the professional ranks. When I covered this last year I noted that Poles have generally not troubled the top of the leaderboard; last year none made the cut, with Antoni Hawkins in 93rd with a 75-67 the best result of the home challenge. We can’t expect greatness this year either.
What can we expect? Well, as I said last year, this isn’t obviously a course that favours the long hitters, but we had more evidence that it does with Hugo Townsend winning, ahead of Anton Albers and Tobias Jonsson, long hitters all. For all the likes of Jovan Rebula and John Gough were close to the lead, so were Oihan Guillamoundeguy and Bryce Easton, so I’m certainly starting to favour the longer hitters. Angel Ayora’s victory owed plenty to all around class, but he’s a powerful hitter, as were a number who followed him home.
The next thing to note is the weather, which looks changeable, and particularly windy on Friday and Saturday. With water all over the course, precision will continue to be important. This is a tight, 7,017 yard par-70 and whilst it is clearly possible to overpower it, it is also highly possible to plot a route around it, and that might prove to be a more effective method given the weather. As I said last year, “I'm not really looking beyond form and quality here, especially if I can find evidence of power and a good iron game. As well as last year I'm looking for clues from Raffeisenbank, Ireland and the UAE.” With the UAE event postponed I’d say that last week’s event will be helpful both for recent form and performance on tree-lined courses in bad weather.
The Selection
However, all of this is moot. I have looked seriously up and down the entry list but my first thought when I saw the registered players hasn’t gone away. I make Caleb Surratt a 7/1 shot in what is, as discussed several times in previous columns, and above, a weak HPT year. He’s available at 10/1 and to me that’s a straightforward selection. I simply think he wins far more than one in eleven of these. Still only 22, he’s proved in his brief professional career that he’s a powerful driver of the golf ball and a good putter. He’s been in decent form of late, too, qualifying for the Open and finishing fifth in LIV UK and 13th in the Danish Golf Championship, both of which were broadly comparable events against much tougher fields.
I simply think he’s too good for this field, he’s in form, and the course will suit him. More than that, I think he’s very, very smart to be here. The younger LIV players will be struggling for places to play next year and Jose Ballester, in a very similar position to Surratt, has registered for first stage Q-school for the DPWT. Three rounds of Q-school is a lottery. Ballester’s talent undoubtedly buys him lots of tickets, but it is a lottery nonetheless. Meanwhile, as well as being able to win a battlefield promotion should he win three of the final seven events, or grab a DPWT card should he finish in the top 15 (there are lower category cards for finishing 16-20 and 21-30,) but there is also entry into the final stage of Q-school for a top 45 finish on the Road to Majorca standings. Currently, that means 314 points. There are 320 points for winning this week – to say nothing of getting entry into the higher tariff events in China.
I think Surratt is a much better player than almost everyone he’ll be up against and I think he’s found a great route to DPWT golf. Two or three good results whilst playing competitively around the world this autumn, and he’s on his way back towards the top. I think that’s smart from him, and I think we’d be silly to oppose him.
Caleb Surratt, 10/1, 6pts win only, Bet365
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