Gregorio De Leo, after an excellent performance all in the top rankings, finished eighth with 408 (67 66 69 71 68 67, -20) strokes in the Final Stage of the Qualifying School, played over 108 holes, and won one of the twenty category 18 cards for the DP World Tour 2026 assigned to the top of the rankings. The others, from 21st to 60th place, earned a Category 21 spot on the main circuit, with fewer opportunities to play, and a full 'card' for the 2026 HotelPlanner Tour.
Gregorio De Leo, results
At the Infinitum Golf in Tarragona, Spain, where the 156 competitors alternated for 72 holes on the two courses, the Lakes Course (par 71) and the Hills Course (par 72), and the 60 who made the cut finished on the former course, South African Zander Lombard dominated with a 391 (64 69 67 64 64 63, -37). He finished with a 63 (-8, nine birdies, one bogey), the best round of the round, leaving Canadian Aaron Cockerill, Indian Shubhankar Sharma, and Australian Connor McKinney 13 strokes behind, in second with 404 (-24), and Portugal's Daniel Rodrigues and England's Nathan Kimsey 15 strokes behind, in fifth with 406 (-22). In seventh place with 407 (-21) was Frenchman Quentin Debove, a member of the Alps Tour, while De Leo was joined by American Davis Bryant, Zimbabwe's Benjamin Follett-Smith, and England's Matthew Baldwin.
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Three other Italians participated in the tournament: Lorenzo Scalise, 29th with 413 (-15), Jacopo Vecchi Fossa, 49th with 418 (-10), and Matteo Cristoni, 60th with 422 (-6). Everyone has a "card" for the 2026 HotelPlanner Tour, but the top two already had it: Scalise, who was confirmed in this year's Road To Mallorca (order of merit), and Vecchi Fossa, who earned it by finishing second in the Alps Tour rankings. Cristoni earned it by starting with Stage 1, won at Golfclub Schloss Ebreichsdorf in Austria, and moving on to Stage 2 (16th at Desert Springs Golf Club in Almeria, Spain).
Gregorio De Leo earned his "card" for the second consecutive year at the Qualifying School, after finishing 13th last year in the competition won by Edoardo Molinari. This season, he finished 130th in the order of merit (out of the 115 confirmed to remain on the tour), earning a Category 10 finish, which would have limited his appearances. Now, with Category 18, he will have a better chance. In the final round, he shot a partial 67 (-4) with four birdies and no bogeys.
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Failing to return to the circuit, where they had also played leading roles, were Spain's Gonzalo Fernandez Castao, seven victories, including two in the Italian Open (2007, 2012), France's Julien Quesne (2), also a winner in the Italian Open (2013), Gregory Bourdy (4) and Alexander Levy (5), Denmark's Lucas Bjerregaard (2), Scotland's Marc Warren (4), England's Chris Wood (3) and Oliver Wilson (2), Germany's Yannik Paul (1), Paraguayan Fabrizio Zanotti (2), and South Africa's Justin Harding (2) and George Coetzee (5).
Lombard received a check for 5,000 from a prize pool of 120,000.
