Rolex Grand Final 2025 preview, picks & Analysis

The Hotelplanner Tour reaches its climax this season with its Grand Final being staged at Club de Golf Alcanada, Port d'Alcudia in Mallorca. Formerly known as the Challenge Tour, it offers a path to the DP World Tour for Europe’s brightest young golfers and a way back for established stars who lost their playing rights and had to drop down and start all over again.

Last year Kristoffer Reitan won this event and has gone on to play some wonderful golf in 2025, narrowly missing out on a Ryder Cup place. In 2023 it was won by Marco Penge, who has won three times on the DP World Tour this season and currently lies in second place in the Race to Dubai. It just goes to prove that dreams can come true, that hard work and dedication can pay off.

Played annually since 1995, a field of 45 players will be fighting it out for 20 precious tour cards.

South Africa’s JC Ritchie and Italy’s Renato Paratore have already secured promotion as a result of each winning three times in 2025, while South Africa’s Daniel van Tonder won the first two events on a circuit that has seen 37 tournaments. 

Ritchie won his maiden Challenge Tour title on home soil at the Limpopo Championship - the first event on the 2020 Road to Mallorca. Although it was the first time the event had been co-sanctioned by the Challenge Tour, it represented a successful title defence for Ritchie, who triumphed in the same event in the previous year on the Sunshine Tour. He won his eighth Sunshine Tour title at the 2021 Bain's Whiskey Cape Town Open, co-sanctioned with the Challenge Tour. He will be hoping that he can finally establish himself on the DP World Tour next year.

Maximilian Steinlechner has enjoyed a hugely consistent season, with one victory and three runner-up finishes. 

(Image Credit: Kevin Diss Photography)

Scotland’s David Law is another two-time winner who has also finished second twice and has enjoyed five top-10 finishes.  He first joined the Challenge Tour in 2014 after a successful amateur career, where he became Scottish Boys champion once and Scottish Amateur champion twice, before joining the paid ranks in 2013.

He won in only the fifth start of his rookie European Tour season, claiming the ISPS Handa Vic Open in dramatic fashion, finishing birdie-par-eagle to erase a three-shot deficit and win outright. He claimed his maiden Challenge Tour victory just seven months earlier, on home soil, at the SSE Scottish Hydro Challenge and went on to graduate to the DP World Tour by finishing inside the top 15 in the Challenge Tour Rankings that year. But he lost his playing privileges in 2024 and has battled back in some style this year.

Paratore has had a full schedule and a year of highs and lows. Apart from his three wins, he has missed 10 cuts and will be hoping to find a greater level of consistency when he returns to the DP World Tour in 2026. He took up golf at the age of eight after being inspired by a family friend and quickly discovered he had a natural talent, first shooting under par aged just 13. 

Paratore enjoyed a brilliant amateur career in which he won the Men’s Individual Strokeplay Gold at the 2014 Youth Olympics, made two Junior Ryder Cup appearances for Europe and triumphed at the 2014 Portuguese Amateur Open. 

He became the third youngest player in history to earn a European Tour card through Qualifying School in 2014, aged just 17 years and 341 days. He created a piece of history at the 2015 Open de France by becoming the first player on the European Tour to score a four on each of the 18 holes of a round. Renowned for the fast speed in which he plays the game, he lived up to his billing as a young star in the making when he claimed a maiden European Tour title at the age of 20 at the 2017 Nordea Masters. He won his second European Tour title at the 2020 British Masters hosted by Lee Westwood at Close House. But like so many others before him, he was unable to keep his card and had to return to the Challenge Tour. 

If you are a close follower of the DP World Tour then you will know that there is a crop of promising young French golfers, and they will be joined next season by 20-year-old Oihan Guillamoundeguy.  His first victory in a professional event came in 2022, while just a 17-year old-amateur, when he won the Red Sea Little Venice Open by a commanding eight shots. After turning professional later that year, he won again in 2023, securing victory at the Abruzzo Alps Open. Oihan graduated onto the European Challenge Tour in 2024 thanks to a fourth place finish on the Alps Tour order of merit in 2023. He won the Irish Challenge in August, a victory that sparked an impressive run of form that saw him reel off four top-10 finishes in his next seven starts.  

Tournament Winners:

It was won in 2019 by Francesco Laporta, in 2020 by Ondrej Lieser, in 2021 by Marcus Helligkilde, in 2022 by Nathan Kimsey, in 2023 by Marco Penge and last year by Kristoffer Reitan.

The Course: 

Club de Golf Alcanada is a par 72 measuring 7,128 yards. Designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr, it opened in 2003 and boasts some stunning sea views. If the wind blows it will be a proper test.

Prize Money:

The total prize fund is 500,000 euros.

How to Watch: 

Thursday, October 30, Sky Sports Golf, 11am; Friday, October 31, Sky Sports Golf, 11am; Saturday, November 1, Sky Sports Golf,11am ; Sunday, November 2, Sky Sports Golf, 10am.

To Win: 

Oihan Guillamoundeguy. In a rich vein of form

Each Way: 

David Law. Getting back to his best