After spending the entire 2025 season on the sidelines after a shoulder injury threatened to call an early halt to his professional career, Gary Hurley returned to action with a positive four weeks in South Africa to kickstart the 2026 HotelPlanner Tour season.
The West Waterford man, who has made the cut in all four events and banked a top-10 finish at the CIRCA Cape Town Open, is looking to carry his positive and pain-free start to the season into the fifth event on the Road to Mallorca schedule.
“It’s been good,” he said. “I hadn’t played a tournament in over a year, so it was nice to make all four cuts in South Africa.
“I don’t really have any pain anymore which is obviously the number one priority.
“I know that I have the ability to earn promotion from the HotelPlanner Tour this year and I want to give myself the best opportunity to do that.”
The 33-year-old, now fresh off a four-week break following the South African swing, is gearing up to compete in the DP World PGTI Open in Gurugram in northern India, and he believes his mentality will be key to success this week and over the remainder of the HotelPlanner Tour campaign.
“The course is good, I’m happy to be able to get out here and play,” he added.
“Last year was difficult in moments. You find yourself not paying attention to golf scores and how people are doing, because it’s hard to see what your peers are doing.
“I’m still not 100%, but I’ve figured out how to work with and around my injury.
“I’m trying to believe in myself a little bit more, and I believe that the game I have is good enough to win out here which I think is important.
“I will be going in with that mentality and take control of the controllables, and the outcome is what it is.”
Hurley joins a strong field in India for the co-sanctioned event between the HotelPlanner Tour and the DP World Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI), which includes fellow Irishmen Mark Power and Conor Purcell, along with PGTI Order of Merit leader Saptak Talwar and two-time DP World Tour winner, Tom Lewis from England.
Power, who earned HotelPlanner Tour status at DP World Tour Q-School last November, will be making his first start on the circuit after making the cut on a tournament invite at the DP World Tour’s Magical Kenya Open and then finishing tied for second and tied for fourth in two MENA Tour starts in Morocco.
Purcell – a two-time HotelPlanner Tour winner – is looking to rediscover the form that saw him graduate to the DP World Tour for 2025, after only seeing weekend in action in two of his four starts in South Africa.
The opening round gets under way on Thursday, with Power and Purcell in the early wave while Hurley tees off alongside Badal Hossain from Bangladesh and India’s Mohd Azhar in the afternoon.
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