This Wednesday has started at the Riyadh Golf Club, in Saudi Arabia, a new edition of the Saudi Open presented by PIF, a tournament of the Asian Tour that distributes one million dollars in prizes and, above all, very valuable points for the world ranking for golfers like the Spaniard David Puig (-4). The one from La Garriga is one of the five representatives of La Armada in this event and, probably, the one who plays the most in the tournament, which can serve as a springboard to the second major of the season.
With what was experienced last weekend at the Augusta National during the Masters still in mind, the best players in the world start to look at the Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, in Kentucky, United States, where from May 16 to 19 the PGA Championship is held. And for David, the chances of being among the guests at the tournament go through leaving this week’s Saudi Open among the top 100 in the World Golf Ranking classification.
Before the tournament, Puig ranks 108th in the OWGR. Breaking into that top 100 would mean, very likely, the call from the organization of the American PGA Championship. And for that, he knows he needs a good result in Riyadh, something he has started to build from the first day, with a good round of 67 strokes, with seven birdies, one bogey and one double bogey, which has allowed him to fully enter the fight for the lead in the classification.
David started with four birdies and one bogey in his first nine this adventure in the Saudi event, prior to the next two LIV Golf tournaments that await him in his particular calendar (so this is presented as his last chance to achieve the passport to the PGA Championship). And although in the second half of his round he was going at the same pace, even co-leading the tournament with his birdies at 10, 12 and 15, a double bogey at the par four of 16 stopped him. In any case, he finishes these first 18 comfortably installed in the top 10, two strokes behind the leader, the American John Catlin (-6).
For the rest of the Spaniards, scores above par except for Eugenio López-Chacarra (PAR), who signed a great eagle on his last hole. Rafa Cabrera Bello (+1), before playing the next two tournaments of the DP World Tour in Japan and China, and Gonzalo Fernández-Castaño (+1), invited to this Saudi event, made 72 strokes each; while Carlos Pigem (+2), a member of the Asian tour, made to settle in the middle of the classification.
