The start of each new season is always ushered in with a sense of excitement at what lies ahead, but there is additional cause for optimism as we embark on the 2025 Road to Mallorca as the HotelPlanner Tour.
On the eve of our new campaign getting underway in South Africa, we announced the first title partnership in the 36 year history of the Challenge Tour following a multi-year agreement with leading travel technology company HotelPlanner.
HotelPlanner’s commitment to our Tour enables us to increase our investment into prize money, helping to support a record overall season prize fund of over €9,000,000, with each European event now having a minimum tournament prize fund of €300,000.
Prize Money Increase
In total, we have prize fund increases for 16 events on our 2025 schedule, while HotelPlanner will also invest in six of our events to enhance the standard of those tournaments.
We made the title partnership announcement during the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, the first of five Rolex Series events on the DP World Tour this season. It was a fitting place to do it, not only because of Rolex’s long-term support of our Tour, including our Grand Final, but also because Dubai was the location just over three years ago for the announcement of DP World becoming title partner of the European Tour group’s main Tour.
Over the past couple of seasons, the players on the DP World Tour have seen the benefit of that partnership, and indeed our Tour has also benefitted from that additional support, including the introduction of the John Jacobs Bursary Award for the leading five players on the Road to Mallorca.
Base For Future Champions
The intention is for our own partnership with HotelPlanner to elevate our Tour in a similar manner, helping us in our mission to produce future champions on the DP World Tour and PGA TOUR, Major Champions and Ryder Cup players.
Since our Tour’s first official season in 1989, we’ve consistently delivered on that front. In total, 221 former HotelPlanner Tour players have won on the DP World Tour, amassing 599 victories between them.
We have also seen 31 of our Alumni play in the Ryder Cup, including seven who featured in the most recent contest in Rome – Matt Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton, Nicolai Højgaard, Robert MacIntyre and Justin Rose for Team Europe, and five-time Major Champion Brooks Koepka for the US Team.
Of course, we are hopeful of adding to that tally at the 2025 Ryder Cup in Bethpage this September and in addition to those who featured in Italy, a number of our graduates are hoping to be part of Luke Donald’s plans in New York.
The recent Team Cup in Abu Dhabi was a terrific opportunity for some of them to further their cause. While our Tour seeks to develop and prepare players for a career on the DP World Tour and global stage, the Team Cup between Continental Europe and Great Britain & Ireland is similarly designed to help develop and prepare players for future Ryder Cups.
Ryder Cup Foundations
It was therefore a proud moment to see that 19 of the 20 players who featured in this year’s Team Cup at Abu Dhabi Golf Club were former HotelPlanner Tour players, with Continental Europe Captain Francesco Molinari the only exception.
Equally, it was very satisfying the following week that at the same time we announced the HotelPlanner partnership at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, an impressive 106 players from that 126-man field were Alumni of the HotelPlanner Tour.
Pathways are a key part of the structure of professional golf, and as facts such as this illustrate, the HotelPlanner Tour continues to thrive as the preeminent route to golf’s global Tour, the DP World Tour.
Global Pathway
In recent years, this has been augmented by new initiatives such as the Global Amateur Pathway (GAP) and our strategic partnerships with other international Tours, enabling us to identify the best talent from around the world and give them a platform, either initially on the HotelPlanner Tour, or directly onto the DP World Tour should they earn that right.
Already the 2025 DP World Tour season has brought success for John Parry, the Number Two player on our 2024 Road to Mallorca, following his victory in the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open. Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen, who topped the Road to Mallorca Rankings in 2024, has also impressed in the early stages of his DP World Tour career, teeing it up in the Team Cup for Continental Europe and securing a top ten finish at the recent Hero Dubai Desert Classic.
These achievements are very pleasing to see, and I wish all 21 graduates the best of luck for the season ahead on the DP World Tour.
Our own campaign is now also underway and will once again include back-to-back events in the UAE in April – the UAE Challenge in Ajman and the Abu Dhabi Challenge – thanks to our partnership with the Emirates Golf Federation.
In the months ahead, I’m looking forward to seeing which of our players add their names to the list of our famous alumni and graduate to the DP World Tour for 2026 as we begin an exciting new era on the HotelPlanner Tour.
by Jamie Hodges, HotelPlanner Tour, Director
