If you look at the classification of the Road to Mallorca of the Challenge Tour you will see, perhaps with surprise, that Sebas García appears among the top 45 of the year of the Challenge Tour. This fact has caught some off guard, as he has not played any tournament in the second division in South Africa. The reason for this appearance is that the results obtained in Bahrain (12th) and Qatar (27th) tournaments of the DP World Tour are counted, which however put him in 41st place in the race to Mallorca.
How is this possible? Well, this is possible since a regulation that we could qualify as revolutionary for players called dual ranking, that is, those who are in the Challenge Tour or play in the DP World Tour through the School or some lower category. They are players who have the possibility of coexisting in both circuits.
The novelty that causes a small earthquake and revolutionizes the ranking of the Road to Mallorca is as follows: ALL tournaments of the DP World Tour and the Majors! scheduled in the same week as a Challenge Tour tournament will count for the Road to Mallorca ranking. We capitalize the word ALL, because until last year this only happened in three or four tournaments a year of the European Circuit that had less entity. Among other things, this was done to improve the field of the DP World Tour tournament that perhaps had less entity and with some problems to fill them. They were exceptional situations.
From this year, any Challenge player who has the opportunity to play in the DP World Tour will not have to think twice since he knows that if he plays in the tournaments of the major circuit he will be able to add the points corresponding to his position both in the DP World Tour and in the Challenge. As said, until now only three or four tournaments a year, Kenya for example, gave points for both circuits. From this year all, as long as, of course, that week there is a Challenge tournament.
It was a measure that some players had been screaming for years not to have to face the dilemma of playing in the DP World Tour, when they had the possibility to do so, or to give it up and continue competing in the Challenge which was their circuit and in which they were fighting to move up to the DP World Tour. However, other players believe that the measure will create a lot of confusion especially in the ranking. The debate is on the table.
What is clear is that this new rule allows having better fields in some DP World Tour tournaments that sometimes cost to complete and favors that players can continue adding experiences, and money, in the first division of the European Circuit without having to give up the points they get.
As we have already explained, the points system is equivalent. If you finish in position number ten, you will add in the Road to Mallorca the direct equivalent of having finished in that place in the Challenge Tour of that same week. However, there is one more particularity and that is that in the case that one of these players plays in a Major in a Challenge week (a fact that happens in the US Open and in the Open), the number of points will be equivalent to those that would have been obtained not in any tournament but in the Final of Mallorca. It is understood that having a ranking player in a Major is something that should be valued very positively.
The dual ranking players, however, must play a minimum of four Challenge Tour tournaments to count in the rankings. This could give a somewhat falsified image of the Road to Mallorca for part of the year. For example, if Sebas harvested good results in the DP World Tour in weeks that coincide with the Challenge, he would get into the top twenty of the year in this circuit, but if with those good results he secured the full rights of the European Circuit his presence in the Challenge ranking would not make sense. Only in the last stretch of the year when it was official that he was not going to dispute the minimum of tournaments could he be taken out of the ranking. That will happen at the end of the season.
The rule has a nuance. It excludes those DP World Tour tournaments scheduled after the Swiss Challenge. That is, the two tournaments of the China tour and obviously the Final of Mallorca. The tournaments in Hainan and Hangzhou are special in the Challenge Tour as they are a kind of playoffs with more points and money. In addition, to enter them you have to be among the first 72 of the Road to Mallorca. It would not make sense this measure if many of these players decided to play that week in the DP World Tour. It is a way to protect these tournaments in China, a country that always costs especially to travel for European players because of the costs involved. So, if any Challenge player decides to play in the DP World Tour the same weeks of China, what he adds will not count for the Road to Mallorca.
In short, this measure puts many more players in the equation of the Road to Mallorca ranking and raises the level of the Circuit. There will be players with less good categories of the DP World Tour that with what they have been adding, at some specific time of the year they can decide to focus on the Challenge without needing to start from scratch and in the opposite sense it facilitates that much more is played in the DP World Tour without giving up anything.
