The countdown to this year’s season-ending European Senior Tour Championship on the sun-kissed island of Mauritius is well under way and the Constance Belle Mare Plage is preparing to add another chapter to its distinguished history.
It is just two years since the Constance Hotels Experience and the Mauritius Commercial Bank joined forces to stage the first of two hugely successful Senior Tour events on the resort’s Legend course.
Now the partnership is about to assume greater significance by hosting the lucrative MCB Senior Tour Championship, the season’s finale, for which entry is restricted to the leading earners on this year’s European Senior Tour and past winners of a major or seniors’ major.
The closing date for entry to the tournament is not until late November but among those who have already confirmed their attendance are last year’s MCB Open champion David Frost and runner-up Roger Chapman, current European Senior Tour order-of-merit leader Peter Fowler and the winner of the 2010 Tour Championship, Mike Cunning.
Successful Ryder Cup player and captain Sam Torrance has also entered, as have the Senior Tour’s leading career earner Carl Mason, last season’s order-of-merit winner Boonchu Ruangkit and 2009 MCB Open champion Kevin Sturgeon.
Welshman Mark Mouland, a recent winner in Portugal in his first year on the Senior Tour, will be relishing a return to the Legend course where, in 2002 and 2003, he won the Mauritius Open in its original format as an end-of-year invitation event.
Adding extra interest to the proceedings this year will be the presentation of the prestigious John Jacobs Trophy to the player who finishes top of the Senior Tour order-of-merit.
Twelve months ago, that honour went to Boonchu Ruangkit, from Thailand, but this year’s recipient may not be decided until the final putt has been sunk in the Tour Championship.
Not that the Legend course at the Belle Mare Plage is any stranger to final round drama. It has a long history of producing the unexpected, as Roger Chapman, Welshman Phillip Price and a number of other players will testify.
The 54-hole MCB Senior Tour Championship will take place from December 9 to 11 and will provide the climax to a week-long programme of golf competition that will include a pro-am and a number of amateur tournaments.
Results, reports and features will appear each day on the official tournament website www.mcbtourchampionship.com.
