– Eight leaders, eight. That’s how things stand at the Challenge of Spain after the first day. Eight leaders and nearly a hundred players within a tight margin of five strokes from the lead, a fact that usually has to do with the excellence of the course, in this case the course of the Real Club Sevilla Golf.
Yes, the rough does not penalize. Yes, it is a course that, far from being long, has even become somewhat short for current high competition standards… Yes, whatever you want, but the design by José María Olazábal continues to cause a lot of damage when the greens get fast and firm, as they are this week. Spicy and hidden flags also help, like today’s. So, gentlemen, it’s not just about the big hit and hold on tight. And the people, the professionals, are delighted. The Sevillian Royal does not stop receiving compliments. Alexander Levy, for example, just after finishing his round, was shouting at Iñigo Urquizu, with whom he communicates in French: “what a wonderful golf course”, he said. And his score was not one of the best, a card of 71 strokes, one less.
– Eight leaders, we were saying, with cards of 68 strokes, four less on the day. And three Spanish players in such a select group. Víctor García Broto (-4), Joel Moscatel (-4) and Pep Anglés (-4). The other five: the Dane Jonathan Goth-Rasmussen, the English Sam Hutsby, the Finn Tapio Pulkkanen and the Welsh Rhys Enoch and Jack Davidson. There are, we repeat, nearly a hundred players within a margin of only five strokes from the lead, but we also have almost forty within a margin of only two, so let’s see who is the brave one who selects a bunch of clear favourites at this stage.
– A few months ago, at the Club de Campo de Madrid, Víctor García Broto also opened the Open of Spain with an excellent first round (66 strokes), although then on Friday he suffered a lot to make the cut. He surely learned a lesson from that. Those who know him best never stop talking wonders about his golf. He is a machine. And they also say that little by little he is sharpening all those intangibles that lead a great player to also become an excellent competitor. This week he has his coach, Álex Larrazábal, in his bag, who is precisely one of those who know him best and are in that ‘sharpening’ task…
– The recent history of another of the leaders, Pep Anglés, also has its crumb. “Last season was very hard for me on a personal level and it ended up being transferred to golf, which is undoubtedly my fault. I decided to stop for a few months, dedicate myself to other projects, and I started training again in early February. This is the fourth tournament I play this year and I am somewhat cold in the competitive aspect. But this year I’m going to take it very calmly, because I also don’t have a tight schedule. Golf will continue to be a priority, but I will go calmly”, he declared at the end of his round. Anglés needs good results in the four or five Challenge tournaments he will have access to and, for now, he has not started badly, although it is obvious that the Catalan player prefers to go step by step and leave expectations aside today.
– As for Joel Moscatel, the other Spanish leader… It is evident that he has the makings of a great player. And also that he should be left alone, to mature as a competitor, a bit in line with the analysis we were making of Víctor García Broto. After all, Joel is a newcomer to high competition and, although he is already showing results and performances more than interesting, he still has to polish himself. And see himself at the top, in the mix, many times.
– The fact is that we had asked the Spanish Armada for a victory this week, the first of the year on the Challenge Tour, and so far we have three leaders and three other players very well positioned within the top ten and just one stroke from the lead, Gonzalo Fernández Castaño (-3), Daniel Berna (-3) and Javier Sainz (-3). Fernández Castaño’s record has its merit and, to some extent, even surprised the player himself. “I played horribly in the Pro-Am and had to leave after giving balls. We closed the practice field and it seems I found something”. The Madrid player usually doesn’t do very well on this course and, just at the end, he suffered a small tumble: “after hitting the second shot on the 18th and leaving the ball on the green for birdie I made the mistake of thinking that for once I was going to finish a round on this course without making a single bogey… And I made three putts. It stings to finish like this, but this 69 is very good, no matter how you look at it, considering how things were yesterday”, he explained.
