Björn's Support Provides Challenge in Denmark

This week’s European Challenge Tour event, the Thomas Björn Open, sees one of the most accomplished players to play on the Challenge Tour repay the Tour that launched his career. Björn, one of Denmark’s most famous sporting sons, supports the €120,000 event financially as well as in name, which, according to, Björn’s fellow countryman Mads Vibe-Hastrup, deserves special recognition looking ahead to the tournament at the Horsens Golf Club.

As one of the most successful players to graduate the Challenge Tour, Björn is an outstanding example to the current generation of Challenge Tour professionals of what can be achieved in the game by successfully negotiating the steep climb to European golf’s top tier on The European Tour.

Björn did just that when he won four times to top the Challenge Tour Rankings in 1995, and he has since gone on to amass nine wins on The European Tour, his most recent coming at the 2006 Nissan Irish Open last month, not to mention his two winning appearances in the 1997 and 2002 Ryder Cups.

For Vibe-Hastrup, that record makes Björn the best Danish golfer to have played the game, as well as being an outstanding ambassador for the sport.

He said: “Thomas’s record makes him the best Danish golfer of all time, by far. And by giving the Challenge Tour an event in Denmark he is really helping Danish golf.

“He knows how important it is for the game in our country to have younger players coming through, and his tournament gives a lot of Danish players the chance to take their games up a stage.

“Thomas is big star in Denmark. You just have to look at the fact that Denmark had no Challenge Tour events 18 months ago, then he decided to help out last season and now this year we have two in Denmark, and the interest in the Challenge Tour is really strong now.”

Vibe-Hastrup is hoping that home advantage can trigger a return to the form that saw him follow Björn to The European Tour in 2002, having finished 11^th on the 2001 Rankings.

The 27 year old, who won the 2001 Sao Paolo Vita & Asset Management Open, has shown flashes of good form this season, but needs to find the require consistency to contend for further Challenge Tour honours.

“I am almost there,” said Vibe-Hastrup. “I am playing much more solid but the putting has to improve. I can’t putt the way I did in Manchester if I want to improve my results.

“I think playing at home will be good for me though. Because there is a lot of interest in the Challenge Tour in Denmark, there should be some good crowds at Horsens, and if I or any of the Danish guys can do well then we should get a lot of support over the weekend.”