Andrew's Delhi Challenge Preview (2025)

If you didn’t follow the Kolkata Challenge, you missed a thrilling finish with about eight guys with genuine chances on the back nine on Sunday, and a four-way playoff won with a birdie on the second hole by Josh Berry. Although I didn’t pick him, to my frustration, Berry is exactly the sort of player I thought had a strong chance here – he’s a very talented young player, good enough to win a DPWT card through Q-school twice (and he’s still just 19) but playing on the HPT because his card status isn’t particularly strong. Coming here got him two starts in India when he wouldn’t necessarily get into Singapore for a single event. This win also guarantees him a start in the Indian Open through the PGTI rankings, which is a bonus. 

Keep an eye on him, and the rest of the guys at the top of the leaderboard, of whom Albert Boneta was our only real chance, and he was in it until the very end, when a bogey-bogey finish took a place return away from us as well as the remote chance of victory. Andreas Halvorsen’s win is enough on his return from injury to confirm his DPWT card, and continues a great start to the year (his fifth at Mauritius, in retrospect, read excellently as a form guide for Kolkata.) He might get a few more HPT starts and will be worth watching if he does. For now, we’re facing a different challenge over in Delhi, where the HPT boys are the warm-up act for the DPWT circus coming to town next week.

The Tournament

There really isn’t anywhere in the world that Jack Nicklaus and his company won’t go and design a golf course. This week sees Serengeti hosting the Sunshine Tour playoffs on a Golden Bear course, and the Classic Golf and Country Club hosting this. Don’t be fooled by the name; we had our antiquity and Raj vibes last week, this is modern India – a huge, glossy resort course to the south-west of Delhi, further out than next week’s event at DLF, in the home of well-heeled capital city India. 

I’ve said this is a Jack Nicklaus golf course so you already have a player type in mind, and you’re right.  his is a second shot golf course. It is heavily bunkered. There are a few water hazards and a few natural features, but fundamentally, you have to avoid trouble and hit good approach shots into well-guarded greens. What you don’t have to do is hit the ball a long way, this is a par 72 that will play to about 7,100 yards (they move the tee boxes around a bit so don’t totally believe the 7,114 in the scorecard.) This is naturally undulating land so we’re not on a flat track, unlike last week, and there are lots of uneven lies and undulating greens and fairways.

Last year, John Parry won this at the start of a great run, beating Josh Grenville-Wood, Chris Paisley and Jack Senior by a shot at 268 (-20.) Honey Baisoya, in T12, was the only PGTI regular to crack the top 20, and the list was notably dominated by British and Irish players. The uneven landing spots and the focus on shot making and different lengths of approaches, as well as the sandy nature of the course and the range of bunkering give a slightly “linksy” feel to the course that may explain some of the names towards the top of the leaderboard. 

It is going to be hot, this being India, but not nearly as humid or baking as last week in Kolkata so I think it’ll be less of a factor. There’s a bit of a breeze in the afternoons but I don’t think it’ll be a factor. One would imagine that, however hard the ground staff try, fairways and greens will firm up as the rounds progress and as the week goes on. 

Putting all that together and I’m looking for experienced players, shot makers and guys with decent form on short courses and ideally links or links-esque courses. Recent form is always useful and last week will be a valuable barometer but this is a different test so I’m not by any stretch expecting the same top ten.

The Field

In essence, this is a very similar field to last week’s, which isn’t a surprise. There is the same mix of PGTI players and HPT regulars, and with the Sunshine Tour playoffs also happening, many of the South African players who dominated the first four rounds are staying closer to home. Which makes me wonder, why does this tour continue to get the latest markets of any tournament? Surely this week we could have seen an earlier market, but here we are. Skybet published an early one that gave me a guide, and I’ve written this based on their odds while waiting for options, so if there’s anyone you fancy, do look for better prices.

The market is lead by Eddie Pepperell, ahead of Lukas Nemecz, Jamie Rutherford and Max Steinlechner, and you can get 25/1 or more on the rest of the field. Nemecz made it to the second hole of the playoff last week, whilst Steinlechner was solo fifth one shot outside that group despite a disappointing level par final round. Whilst Rutherford was ordinary, finishing T52, his form from South Africa is stellar – he’s the highest ranked in the field on Road to Majorca points. However, he missed the cut here last year and I’m not sure he’ll enjoy the challenge.

I did look long and hard at various PGTI players, including Honey Baisoya, but his form has fallen off a cliff after a good start to the year (missing three consecutive cuts, last week by six shots) and I couldn’t find any local players who I thought represented value. Matthis Besard kept my attention for a while but there’s no evidence that his approach game is good enough for this and he seems steady rather than spectacular at this level, whilst the likes of Berry, Filippo Celli and Sam Jones will get their chances when the game off the tee is more valuable. Robin Sciot-Siegrist is a player I love and who is trending in the right direction (and has decent form on comparable courses) but again, I just don’t think he’s in a winning vein at the moment. I have found three I really like.

Selections

First on my list is Eddie Pepperell. The astute reader will have noticed that I didn’t mention him in my assessment of the market leaders, and that’s because I think he has a better chance than the market suggests even though he’s listed as favourite. Eddie is clearly motivated to win his DPWT card back and he’s good enough to do so. He’s picked up three top tens already this season (one on the DPWT at Mauritius where he was behind last year’s Delhi winner John Parry, as well as the NTT Pro-Am and last week’s event in Kolkata) and this is the ideal test. There’s nobody in the field with links record to match his – he was sixth in the 2018 Open, for crying out loud – and he’s a supremely accurate golfer, if too short to be really elite these days. He caught the eye and confirmed his place on my team with his top ten last week and I think he picks up a first win back on this tour this week.

Another experienced player dropping down from DPWT level is Adri Arnaus, who started last week strongly before fading into 29th. He’s another for whom a shorter test of accuracy is far more appropriate, and another who went well in Mauritius earlier this year. He’s an experienced player who is classy in this field and his record on comparable courses is great (as well as three top 25s in the Dunhill Links giving that aspect, he’s been second and fourth in the Open de Espana, won the Catalunya Championship, finished fifth last year in the Italian Open and has two top tens at Crans-sur-Sierre.) I simply expected him to be a much shorter price and will happily take advantage.

Turning to a couple at longer prices, I think we might see a big week from Callum Fyfe. I almost started this sentence with “the young Scot” but the truth is, he isn’t so young any more. It is only fair to say that, at 27, he hasn’t had the career that many would have expected. He was a very good amateur in Scotland and has mixed time on the Challenge Tour with various mini-tours since turning pro, picking up plenty of high places without winning. At the end of last season he grabbed a top ten in the Czech challenge and the following week won the Tour Championship on the Tartan Pro Tour, which at least guaranteed him a card for this year’s HPT – and did it by winning on the Trump International Golf Links, a useful comparison. His 11th at the Cape Town Open and 40th at Kolkata, which was too long for him, show that he’s carried that form into this season. I think that he’s learned his game, is sneakily well-suited to this course, and can spring a bit of a surprise here.

Finally, I was surprised by the price available for Danny List. Thanks in part to Ryan (Monday Q from twitter/X) giving him a lot of justified attention after DPWT Q-school, he picked up a start at the Genesis as part of a chaotic start to the 2025 year, but the Q-school graduate is probably at the right level here. Has he been overwhelmed in some of his starts on the PGA and DPWT? Probably. It is noteworthy that his previous HPT start, at the MyGolfLife Open, saw him finish third. We know that he’s experienced on all sorts of rough courses, having grown up playing golf in Ghana, and from reading player reviews it doesn’t sound like this week’s course has been kept up as Nicklaus and his team would have wished. We know he’s got a swing to match his story and his performance at Q-school suggests that he can plot his way around short, low-scoring courses (he was 18th, a few shots ahead of Pepperell.) I didn’t intend to include him, or a fourth pick, but I couldn’t let this price slide past me.

• Eddie Pepperell, 16/1, 2pts win only, Bet365.

• Adri Arnaus, 40/1.

• Callum Fyfe, 66/1.

• Danny List, 150/1.

All 1pt e/w, ¼ odds 5 places, Bet365.