It was almost a given, albeit with due caution, that Conor Purcell (-13) or Joakim Lagergren (-12) would win today’s Black Desert NI Open presented by Tom McKibbin, given the lead they both had going into the final round… And so it was, without setting a precedent, as the Irishman Conor prevailed without even being able to play under par this Sunday (round of 71 on the par 70 of the Galgorm course), but significantly better than Lagergren, who today went to a record of 73 strokes and was left with a bitter taste in his mouth. It is the first victory for this 27-year-old Irishman and it serves him to move up to fourth position in the Challenge ranking and to seriously aim for the European circuit for the 2025 season.
On the other hand, we pointed out in yesterday’s report that there was a more or less remote possibility that Álvaro Quirós (-6) would win the ‘bronze medal’, reach the third place, and the truth is that the Spanish player, in what was another more than notable round of golf, had risen precisely to that third position with four holes to go… But a bogey on the 15th, after a bad start, and a double bogey on the 16th, after one of those macabre pirouettes so typical of golf, ended up taking him to a good seventh position, but bittersweet in any case, as things were, because with a great end of the round, even, who knows, he could have pushed the leaders, who were not exactly overflowing with play and result…
“I know it’s been a good week. I value a lot, for example, how well I’ve been hitting the irons during the four rounds and in difficult conditions, especially the first two days. But that end of the round has been… On the 15th I paid for a bad swing from the tee and there’s nothing more to say, because I went into the water from the start. But the double bogey on the 16th was terrible, because I missed the fairway by not too many meters and when we got there we didn’t find the ball in the rough, so I had to go back to the tee,” explained to Tengolf the one from Guadiaro, still slightly saddened. “Then I made a good birdie on the 17th and I had another good option on the 18th that didn’t go in, but it seems like I’m in that negative dynamic of not being able to squeeze the good rounds of golf to the fullest, which this week have been all four.”
In reality, all things considered, and despite the final heat, Quirós begins to see light at the end of the tunnel, after seeing himself really reliable (or efficient) from the tee in general, hitting more than a handful of irons, as has been explained (today, on hole 13 he was about to hole it from the fairway: the ball almost hit the edge of the cup and stayed half a meter away), and even though the putter has not been exactly his ally in Northern Ireland.
Everything is a matter of going step by step and, for now, Álvaro has gained this week 105 places in the Challenge ranking, to be placed in the 117th position. It is true that he is still far from the big goals and, to top it off, in principle he will not be able to enjoy many more opportunities to play, but a consistent and even brilliant game like this week’s can and should open new paths (a final litmus test: only four players have signed four cards under par in Galgorm this week and he is one of them).
