– This Thursday marks the start of the Nedbank Golf Challenge at the Gary Player Country Club in Sun City, a tournament with only 66 players, no cut, and valuable Race to Dubai points at stake (665 for the winner, for example). Many players are also starting their 2026 season at the DP World Tour in this event, and one of them is Pablo Larrazábal…
– The Spanish player, aged 42, will kick off his nineteenth consecutive season on the European circuit, a milestone only within reach of very special players. “For now, it’s the nineteenth, but I want there to be Pablo Larrazábal for the 20th, the 21st, the 22nd… No gifts here,” the Barcelona native tells Tengolf from Sun City.
– This week will be Pablo’s 467th tournament on the European circuit, with those nine victories he holds at the top of his record, two of them on South African soil, by the way. The exclusive figure of five hundred tournaments is already on the horizon, although it won’t be this year when he reaches it.
– For now, Larrazábal feels satisfied with how he arrives at the event. “I think I arrive with the head of a veteran, but with the heart of a youngster. It’s true that it’s been ten months since the last time I was in a position to win a tournament (Bahrain, February 2025), but my idea is still to put myself in that situation. If in 2026 we manage to be four or five times within a maximum distance of four strokes from the leader by Sunday, it will surely have been a good year. I’ve been working very well the last five weeks in the gym, and both my team and I believe and feel that I can still give a lot,” he explains.
– Alongside Larrazábal, six other Spaniards are starting the 2026 season. Ángel Ayora, for example, one of the players who finished last season in the best form and who starts his second year on the European circuit tomorrow. Or Jorge Campillo, who has joined the participants at the last minute and follows in Larrazábal’s footsteps, as he starts his fifteenth consecutive season on the DP World Tour in Sun City. This is also a noteworthy fact. Additionally, there are Nacho Elvira, Alex del Rey, Eugenio Chacarra, and Ángel Hidalgo.
– The player present at the event with the highest world ranking is Viktor Hovland (13th), who hasn’t won a European circuit tournament since he triumphed at the Dubai Desert Classic almost four years ago. The Norwegian is not a regular on the DP World Tour calendar, and this week he certainly stands out as the main contender for victory after six weeks without competing.
