Liam Nolan has turned an invite at the start of the HotelPlanner Tour campaign into a promotion opportunity as he looks to land a DP World Tour card at this week’s Rolex Grand Final at Club de Golf Alcanada.
Nolan turned professional last August and was preparing for a maiden season on the Alps Tour before back to back top five finishes in South Africa gave him full HotelPlanner Tour status and he has remained in the DP World Tour promotion hunt until the final week of the year.
Nolan’s results have tailed off since the summer but he comes into this week ranked 43rd on the Road to Mallorca standings with 20 DP World Tour cards available this Sunday.
Every single person in the 45-man field can earn promotion. Spaniard Victor Pastor, who is the last man in the field, and Englishman Jamie Rutherford, who currently occupies 20th in the Rankings and the final promotion place, are only separated by 161 points. Rutherford has 592 points, while Pastor has 431.
Just 12 months ago, the player in the final promotion place and the last player in the field arrived in Mallorca separated by 229 points, meaning that this year, the race for promotion is much tighter.
The winner at Alcanada will be awarded 640 points, second place 440 points, third 280, fourth 240 and fifth 200, all the way down to 45th place who will earn 20.80 points. No-one is out of the running to earn a life-changing card on Golf’s Global Tour.
Galway native Nolan most likely needs a victory this week – what better time to strike gold for the first time as a professional than to do it this week.
That seems like a pressure situation, but he does have the fallback of the Final Stage of DP World Tour Q-School next month, although the strength of card available in Alcanada is greater.
“I’m very happy with how it has gone. It’s not that I wasn’t expecting it but when you are playing off invites it is hard to know how it is going to go,” said Nolan who has had a very encouraging first year as a professional up to this point.
Max Kennedy dropped out of the top-45 on the final week of the regular season in China a fortnight ago but Irish interest isn’t entirely in Nolan this week.
England’s John Gough, who represents Killeen Castle and has family scattered all over the county of Meath comes into the week ranked 32nd in the order of merit.
A first top five of the season in the Blot Play9 in June kick-starting his promotion challenge. The 27-year-old, who won the Irish Amateur Open Championship in 2023, earned promotion from the Clutch Pro Tour last year.
He followed that with two more top five finishes in August and now sits a good week away from a DP World Tour card.
Nolan is in the first group out at 09:02 on Thursday morning while Gough is at 09:50.
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