Ryder Cup - up for the Challenge

As the eyes of the golfing, and sporting, world turn to next week’s Ryder Cup, European Challenge Tour fans will once again find much to cheer about, with a host of familiar faces set to descend on Hazeltine National.

Just as in 2014, when they were all members of the victorious European team, seven Challenge Tour alumni will tee it up in golf’s greatest team event – six for Team Europe and, for the first time in Challenge Tour history, one for Team USA.

Rafa Cabrera Bello, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Martin Kaymer, Thomas Pieters, Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson form half of Darren Clarke’s side, with Brooks Koepka, a Challenge Tour graduate in 2013, in American ranks for the first time.

Their selection extends the Challenge Tour’s proud association with the illustrious event, which dates back to Peter Baker, Joakim Haeggman and Costantino Rocca’s selection in 1993 and now means an impressive 27 alumni will have played in the contest.

Rose and Stenson, making their fourth Ryder Cup appearances, both fly to Minnesota after momentous years, and will be two of the senior members of Team Europe.

Stenson topped the Challenge Tour Rankings in 2000 and this summer claimed Sweden’s first Major Championship when he triumphed at the Open Championship in a thrilling final day shootout with Phil Mickelson.

The 40 year old then won the silver medal as golf returned the Olympic Games after a 112 year absence, where Rose – who spent 1999 on the Challenge Tour – claimed an historic gold.

Germany’s Kaymer, a two-time Major winner and Challenge Tour graduate in 2006, will be bidding to match Luke Donald’s record of being on the winning side in all four of his appearances after receiving a wildcard pick.

The remaining three Challenge Tour alumni on the European side are all rookies, with Cabrera Bello – a graduate in 2006 and 2008 – and Fitzpatrick, who was playing on the Challenge Tour just two years ago, automatic qualifiers.

Pieters, who spent part of the 2013 season in Challenge Tour ranks, made an unarguable case for a wildcard pick with three weeks of incredible golf. The Belgian secured his third European Tour title at the Made In Denmark, the final event before selection was finalised, on the back of coming second at the D+D Czech Masters and a fourth place finish at the Olympics.

Koepka won three times on the Challenge Tour in 2013 to earn immediate promotion to the European Tour, and within a year had shown himself worthy of a place on golf’s highest stages by winning the Turkish Airlines Open.

Alongside him in American ranks is another former winner on the Challenge Tour, Mickelson, whose one and only outing on Europe’s top developmental tour was his victory in the Tournoi Perrier Paris in 1993.

Another man with a played one, won one record on the Challenge Tour is European captain Clarke, who was victorious in the Benmore Developments Northern Ireland Masters in 2003.

And the Challenge Tour influence spreads to Clarke’s assistants, with two of his vice-captains, Thomas Bjørn and Ian Poulter, having developed their games there in the early part of their careers.

Bjørn topped the Rankings in 1995 while Poulter, now a Ryder Cup legend, spent 1999 on the Challenge Tour, winning the 18^thOpen de Côte d’Ivoire.