Ritchie reminded everyone why he remains one of the most talented and determined golfer. He secured three victories on the HotelPlanner Tour this season, making history as the first South African to win three times in a single season on the circuit. He also became the first South African to top the Tour’s overall Road to Mallorca rankings. Reflecting on the challenges he has faced and the mental struggles that threatened his game, Ritchie said winning the Tour’s ranking was his proudest achievement of the year. “That is probably the best achievement I could have gotten this year to justify all the hard work and the struggle of the last couple of years. I am glad that I could prove to myself that it is possible. It’s a lonely space. It’s a space that you have to deal with the monsters in your head because nothing physical is happening to you. We are all fighting our swings week in and week out, we all struggle to make putts every now and again. I tried talking to people and that didn’t seem to work, and the only thing that seemed to work for me was to buckle down, decided to lose some weight just to feel better about myself and started working hard again. I started treating golf like a 9 to 5 and not like a hobby and it has rewarded me for that,” said Ritchie to HotelPlanner Tour. His first victory of the season came at the German Challenge powered by VcG at Wittelsbacher Golf Club in July. The victory in Bavaria was his first since 2022 and a first on the HotelPlanner Tour outside of his native South Africa. Before the start of the 2025 season, Ritchie’s four HotelPlanner Tour victories had all come in South Africa. In September, the 31 year old secured his second title of the season, his overall sixth on the HotelPlanner Tour, at the Open de Portugal at Royal Óbidos. The following week, he, once again, showed his talent with his third victory of the campaign at the Italian Challenge Open, while also securing automatic promotion to the 2026 DP World Tour. He looks forward to playing on the DP World Tour again, a place where he said he previously felt lost. Notably, he featured in 19 tournaments throughout the season, and registered eight top 10 finishes. “I am relieved, it has been a long season. There was a lot of hard work, a lot of fear at the start of the season to come and play out here again because I didn’t know what I was going to get. Utter relief to, hopefully never to come back here again. I feel like the last time I played out there (DP World Tour) I didn’t know what I was doing, I felt out of my depth when I was playing there and I just didn’t know how to find my feet. It took falling back down to the Sunshine Tour and grinding it back up all the way on the ladder to get back here,” he said. He gave credit to a strong support structure in his family and manager as they never turned his back on him.