Teeing off excellence in golf: Let the Games begin!

The 2023 MCB Road to Mauritius has reached its traditional and much-loved finale.

This Legends Tour season has ventured throughout the continent of Europe, to the United States of America in the west, to Vietnam in the east, and is now all set for a thrilling conclusion in the Indian Ocean.

The MCB Tour Championship will take place this week on the Legends Course at Constance Belle Mare Plage and it has once again attracted the world’s finest senior golfers.

The prestigious tournament has been won by many stars of the game including 1996 Open champion Tom Lehman, multiple PGA Tour winner David Frost and the European Ryder Cup heroes Colin Montgomerie and Thomas Bjorn.

Bjorn returns and is hoping to successfully defend the title he won in spectacular style 12 months ago. “It was a special week,” the Dane said ahead of Friday’s first round. Casting his mind back to his seven-stroke victory he added: “Playing in a place like Mauritius, you get inspired.”

He is among the favourites this week, alongside England’s Peter Baker and the Brazilian Adilson Da Silva who are locked in a race to win the seasonal rankings.

Baker is a three-time winner in 2023 and a top-two finish this week will ensure he holds onto the top spot.

Da Silva has four victories this year, including last week in Vietnam. He needs to finish alone in third, or in no more than a four-way tie for second, to have any hope of overtaking Baker.

Both will be confident. Baker won the 2007 Mauritius Open and all four of Da Silva’s 2023 wins came on tree-lined layouts like the Legends Course.

Watch out, too, for the canny Argentinean Ricardo Gonzalez, the course specialist James Kingston from South Africa and Kiwi Michael Campbell who was the 2006 US Open champion.