The second week of the new season brings the Race to Dubai to the shores of idyllic Mauritius, where Louis Oosthuizen heads a strong field of players from the European Tour, the Asian Tour and the Sunshine Tour.
Rewind
Jeunghun Wang made it two wins in as many weeks when he lifted the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open trophy in May 2016, the last time the tournament was staged.
The Korean had claimed a maiden European Tour title seven days earlier at the Trophée Hassan II, and managed to overcome the challenge of Siddikur Rahman for a one-shot victory and a second successive title.
The 20-year-old actually trailed his Bangladeshi opponent by three shots with three holes to play, but overhauled him right at the death, thanks to a memorable bunker shot to set up a closing birdie.
The win made Wang the first back-to-back winner on the European Tour since Rory McIlroy almost two years previously, and he became the first Asian to achieve this feat.
The field
Louis Oosthuizen is joined in the field by his fellow former Open Champion Darren Clarke as they both make their debut in the tri-sanctioned event.
Former Ryder Cup players Nicolas Colsaerts and Jamie Donaldson also make the journey to the small Indian Ocean island. Dylan Frittelli plays the event for the third time and enters the week on a strong run of form, having challenged for the title in the 2017 season-ending DP World Tour Championship, Dubai, before finishing in a share of fourth and adding a top-20 last week at the UBS Hong Kong Open.
Swede Alexander Björk will also be high on confidence after coming agonisingly close to a maiden European Tour title in Hong Kong, finishing in a share of second place, while 20 of the 33 players to qualify from European Tour Qualifying School will also compete.
The course
Located in the southern part of the island, Heritage Golf Club is set on an idyllic piece of land between rolling mountains and the turquoise lagoon of the Indian Ocean, offering stunning vistas throughout. The 27-hole golf complex was designed by Peter Matkovich and opened in 2004, comprising an 18-hole championship course, a nine-hole par-three course, exceptional practice facilities, a golf academy, clubhouse, restaurant and golf shop.
The course was recently recognised as one of the Top 10 golf courses in Africa, and hosted this event in 2015 when George Coetzee overcame Thorbjørn Olesen in a play-off to claim his second title of that particular season and his third overall.
Did you know?
• In 2015 the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open made European Tour history by becoming the first event to be tri-sanctioned by the European, Asia and Sunshine Tours.
• Heritage Golf Club will host the European Tour for the second time this week.
• Jeunghun Wang became the first Asian to win back-to-back European Tour events after his victory at the 2016 AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open. He won the Trophée Hassan II the previous week.
• With his victory in 2016 Wang, aged 20 years and 251 days at the time, became the youngest player to win consecutive European Tour events, beating the previous record of Seve Ballesteros, who was 21 years and 119 days old when he achieved the feat in 1978.
• The event is the first of six on the African continent during the 2018 European Tour season.
• History was made in the event in 2015 when Javier Colomo achieved the first ever hole-in-one on a par-four on the European Tour. His albatross came at the 329-yard ninth hole during the second round.
Credit: European Tour
