The winner of this year’s AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open will unlock a host of new global opportunities in a tournament that has always played a key role in the career growth of its champions.
Through its status as the final tournament on the DP World Tour’s Opening Swing that marks the start of the new season, the 2023 AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open at the spectacular La Réserve Golf Links from 14-17 December will be the scene of a double triumph come the Sunday afternoon.
Beyond the winner of the tournament, the Opening Swing will also have its own Order of Merit which will conclude in Mauritius. The leading professional on this Order of Merit will win an extra $200 000 and, if already a member of the DP World Tour, an invitation into the DP World Tour’s next scheduled Rolex Series tournament as well as a spot in each of the DP World Tour’s Back Nine series of nine high-profile tournaments.
All of which could make a week in Mauritius this December a truly career-defining one.
It’s in keeping with the history of this tournament as the spark behind the rise of the careers of many of its champions.
Every single previous winner of the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open is now a multiple winner on the DP World Tour, while some have also gone on to win on the PGA Tour.
Danish professional Rasmus Højgaard made his DP World Tour breakthrough when he won the 2019 AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open, becoming the third youngest winner in DP World Tour history after Matteo Manassero and Danny Lee, and in just his fifth start on the tour. He went on to win a further three DP World Tour titles and was in contention for a place on the European Ryder Cup team this year.
Frenchman Antoine Rozner lost the playoff to Højgaard in 2019 when he was still competing on the European Challenge Tour. He returned in 2022 to win the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open by a commanding five strokes – the largest margin of victory in the tournament’s history – to cement his status as a rising start of the DP World Tour. The victory in Mauritius marked a personal record of Rozner having won a tournament every year for three years in succession since earning his DP World Tour card in 2020.
South African Dylan Frittelli’s victory in the 2017 AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open was his second DP World Tour title. It was a win that lifted him to just outside the top 50 on the Official World Golf Ranking, and it put him on a path to winning on the PGA Tour a year later in the John Deere Classic and challenging in the Majors with a finish of tied fifth in The Masters in 2020 and fifth in The Open in 2021.
American Kurt Kitayama claimed his maiden DP World Tour title in the 2018 AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open on his way to later winning the 2023 Arnold Palmer Invitational on the PGA Tour and finishing tied fourth in The PGA Championship this year. He now occupies a place in the top 30 on the Official World Golf Ranking.
For early champions George Coetzee (2015) and Wang Jeung-hun (2016), the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open also formed part of multiple DP World Tour wins in their careers.
