While the eyes of the golfing world are on Pinehurst, there are a host of potential stars of the future taking their first, tentative steps along a road which they hope will one day lead to major championships.

As the weeks roll into each other it's always nice to see tournaments try to establish their own identity and the Kaskada Golf Challenge has invited along some of the best Europeans to have recently graduated from the US college system, all of whom have been afforded maximum respect by the layers.

Mats Ege made his professional debut in last week's Scandinavian Mixed and did well in 51st. He's Norway's latest young talent and received plenty of help from Viktor Hovland on his way to 11th place in the PGA Tour University standings, which were headed by star-in-the-making Michael Thorbjornsen. Nobody though managed more than Ege's five wins along the way.

Not far behind in 16th, and firmly Germany's number one amateur until turning professional, Jonas Baumgartner is another notable name. We saw a glimpse of what he could do when he made the weekend in last summer's BMW International Open, and he's won a couple of good college events this year to sign off on a high.

Herman Wibe Sekne is another Norwegian and he was 19th and the performance of Tim Tillmanns in Spain last week serves as a warning to anyone underestimating these youngsters. Tillmanns was a long way down that PGA Tour U ranking in 83rd place, yet he came straight out and finished 17th in the Challenge de Cadiz.

We saw last summer with Adrien Dumont de Chassart and Ricky Castillo over on the Korn Ferry Tour that winning straight away isn't out of the question, but I can't say that any of the above trio stand out at the prices unless you can get the standout 80/1 Baumgartner. We're all guessing, but I had hoped that bookmakers might have guessed something a good deal bigger than they have.

The course in Brno is notable for its elevation changes which help make the par-four seventh just about driveable. There are three par-fives, two of which are very much on the short side, and a host of good scoring chances when the wind lays down.

When it doesn't, things get tough because the rough in particular is extremely penal. That's why we've seen players threaten to break 60 at times, yet last year's winning score was just 12-under.

Adamstal and St Mellion are the two courses which come to mind when I think 'elevation changes' and the former looks a really good guide. Marc Hammer won there and was eighth here, Lorenzo Scalise won here and was 10th there, and Marcel Schneider, having won here, shot an opening 62 at Adamstal.

Manuel Elvira, Josh Geary, Borja Virto, Damien Perrier, Rikard Karlberg and Felix Mory are others with top-10 finishes at both courses and it looks a good place to go hunting for clues, while it's also perhaps notable that former Kaskada champion Ross McGowan went on to finish runner-up at St Mellion.

I was pretty pleased to discover that NICOLAI VON DELLINGHAUSEN won at Adamstal on the Pro Golf Tour once upon a time, a performance he backed up when 19th there at this level and 28th on the DP World Tour during the summer of 2020.

Von Dellinghausen had been on my radar already because he's dropping in class having made cuts in Belgium and Germany on his last two starts. I will admit that Jonathan Goth-Rasmussen's Cadiz win did annoy me somewhat because he too was coming back down in grade having been competitive at that higher level, but hopefully von Dellinghausen can make up for it.

A tidy player who can put the lights out, before these two improved displays in the Soudal and European Opens he'd shown what he can do on the Challenge Tour with back-to-back top-20 finishes in the UAE, and I very much expect him to be competitive once more.

There are definitely some visual similarities with Luton Hoo, where he's been second and fourth in two starts, and as well as playing plenty in the Czech Republic, he contended on his sole start just over the Slovakian border at Penati. Anything north of 25/1 looks good value.

JANNIK DE BRUYN contended in the aforementioned European Open, which was won by Laurie Canter, and he can do the same in this considerably weaker field.

De Bruyn has long been touted as a potential star and I put him up on his most recent Challenge Tour start in Spain, where he played pretty nicely to finish just outside the top 20 at a course he knew from his amateur days.

We were able to pinch three-figure prices in places so there's some hesitancy in going in at considerably less than that, but we are without standout performer Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen and De Bruyn's performances both in Spain and over the first 54 holes at Green Eagle merit the change.