The Irish Challenge kicks off this Thursday at the The K Club (Straffan, Ireland). To be more precise, on the Palmer South course of this complex that hosted the Ryder Cup in 2006, although it was played on the other course, the Palmer North.
18 of the top 20 in the Challenge Tour ranking to date are in the event and, among them, until proven otherwise, the main attraction continues to be the top three, Rasmus Neergaard Petersen, John Parry and Joel Moscatel, for the simple (and sharp) reason that the three already have two victories each, so a third would automatically and ipso facto take them to the first division, the DP World Tour, where they could already play the rest of the season. Last week, in Northern Ireland, this could have happened, but none of the three had options (Moscatel and Petersen, in fact, missed the cut). We will have to see if they take advantage of this new match point.
It is not so simple that it happens, it almost goes without saying. In fact, it could even happen, why not, that the group of players with two wins expanded. Let’s think for example about the possibilities of Conor Purcell, the Irishman, and therefore local player, who comes from winning last week in sister Northern Ireland, who is also currently number 4 in the Challenge ranking…
The Palmer South is a rather short course, although its greens, very moved, defend themselves with certain authority. Also the wind, of course, which seems to be going to blow quite intensely throughout Friday. On the other hand, rain is always to be expected in Ireland, although the weather forecast is not too negative in this regard.
In addition to Moscatel, 16 other Spaniards are playing this week at the K Club: David Borda, Emilio Cuartero, Pep Anglés, Álvaro Quirós, Alejandro Cañizares, Ángel Ayora, Quim Vidal, Albert Boneta, Víctor Pastor, Alejandro Aguilera, Álvaro Hernández Cabezuela, Javier Sainz, Lucas Vacarisas, Alfredo García Heredia, Víctor García Broto and Borja Virto.
