With less wind and without the rain that the weather forecasts announced at the beginning of the week, the Farmfoods Scottish Challenge, the eighteenth event of the season on the Challenge Tour calendar, kicked off this Thursday at the Hawkshill Championship Course of the Newmachar Golf Club in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. And it did so with a discreet performance from the large number of Spanish participants, among whom Javier Sainz (-2) has achieved the best result, with a round of 69 strokes.
For the Basque golfer, this tournament is very special. It was where a couple of years ago he achieved what to date is his only victory on the circuit. He did it by winning on the second hole of the playoff against Jeremy Freiburghaus after closing his participation with a cumulative result of 11 strokes below the course par. A record that will very likely need to be improved this week to win after what was seen in the first 18 holes.
With three birdies and one bogey, Sainz is in 25th position tied, four strokes behind South African Deon Germishuys (-6) and Dane Peter Launer Baek (-6), who share the lead. The Finn Tapio Pulkkanen (-4), who has just represented his country at the Paris Games and is presented as one of the favourites, is tied for fifth two strokes behind. While Lucas Bjerregaar (-2), one of the winners on the DP World Tour competing this week, is tied with Javier.
Launer Baek goes bogey-free to take a share of the lead 👏 #FarmfoodsScottishChallenge pic.twitter.com/cfl7I2mh9z
— Challenge Tour (@Challenge_Tour) August 8, 2024
Emilio Cuartero Blanco (-1), Borja Virto (-1) and Quim Vidal (-1) have been able to beat the course, but they are also far from the lead. While Ángel Ayora (PAR) has signed a 71 to stay within the provisional cut. The rest of the Spaniards, Alejandro Aguilera (+1), Alejandro Cañizares (+1), Albert Boneta (+1), Álvaro Quirós (+3), Álvaro Hernández (+3), Jorge Maicas (+8) and, surprisingly, Joel Moscatel (+4), will have to come back tomorrow to continue playing over the weekend.
Moscatel, like John Parry (-1), number 2 on the Road to Mallorca, is looking for his third win of the season on the tour this week to move directly to the DP World Tour without having to wait until the end of the course. To achieve this, he will have to start a significant comeback from tomorrow, first to overcome the sieve of the first 36 holes, and then to try to recover the wide disadvantage with which he starts after a bad start with a round of 75 strokes.
