Robin Roussel will look to maintain his fantastic early season form when he tees it up at the D+D REAL Czech Challenge at Kaskáda Golf Resort from May 23-26.
The Frenchman has recorded three top ten results in his three outings on the European Challenge Tour in 2019, edging closer to a maiden title while compatriot Antoine Rozner sets the pace following back-to-back victories at the Challenge de España and the Prague Golf Challenge.
A share of tenth place in Turkey got Roussel’s campaign under way before finishing tied seventh in Spain and tied sixth in Prague in the following two weeks. After a week’s break in the schedule, the Challenge Tour returns to the Czech Republic this week and the 25-year-old is determined to keep his impressive start to the season going.
“My game feels very good right now,” he said. “I needed a top ten in Turkey to play in Izki, and I needed a top ten in Izki to play in Prague, so that made me feel really good.
“I had three good weeks of ball striking and when you’re in a period like that you want to keep the momentum going.
“My game is strong at the moment and I’ll try to do exactly what I did in the previous three events and we’ll see how it goes this week.”
If Roussel is to clinch his maiden Challenge Tour title he will need to overcome close friend Rozner, who has won the previous two events on the Tour and would set a record if he wins this week. The 26-year-old would become the first player to win three events in a row which would also set the record for the fewest number of events taken to earn automatic promotion via the three-win rule, beating Kristoffer Broberg’s record of five events.
“If I’m Mr Top Ten, then I need to give him a name,” Roussel said. “He’s doing really well at the moment and I wish him well.
“We practise at the same place, so we’ve been practising together over the winter. He’s been playing well for a long time and it only needed a little change in his mind and he’s got that now.”
For the second event running, the Challenge Tour returns to Czech Republic where Kaskáda Golf Resort makes its debut this week. The venue, located outside of Czech Republic’s second largest city Brno, will give the players a different challenge to what they have experienced during the opening events of the season.
“This course is really different from the first three courses we’ve played,” Roussel said. “It’s really hilly and there is a lot of thick rough outside the fairways and around the greens. There are only three par fives, so I think it is less scoreable than the events we’ve played, so we’ll see how low the scores go.
“I love travelling and the Czech Republic is a great country and it’s lovely to be here.”
The D+D REAL Czech Challenge will get under way at 7:30am local time, with Roussel teeing off at 1:50pm while Rozner begins his quest for three in a row at 8:30am.
