– If there’s one player you wouldn’t expect to score a 64 on this course at the Real Club Sevilla Golf, with its crunchy and vertiginous greens, it could well be Sebastien Gros (-9), the sole leader of the Challenge of Spain. It’s not because the Frenchman is a bad player, far from it. Nor is it that long ago (around 2015) when his emergence on the front line of European and world golf seemed meteoric, or at least really consistent. Ah, that big hitter who dreamed of being Number One in the world…
Then, as so often happens, his projection went awry and he couldn’t find a way to get back on track. And the thing is, Gros has hardly played this year, only three tournaments before this week’s, and he hadn’t made a single cut. The issue is also that in the last four and a half years, from 2020 to the present day, he has only played 43 tournaments that count towards the world ranking, not even ten per year. The thing is that the Sevillian course is a real test this week, a serious challenge (the accumulated -5 is in the top ten after 36 holes, something unusual in these times), and Gros arrived in the Andalusian capital as the world’s number 1,256, taking advantage of an invitation…
– Or perhaps, who knows, we should reason exactly the opposite. As the Frenchman competes without great expectations, he has been very capable of playing the course stroke by stroke, hardly paying attention to anything else, only concerned with overcoming each difficulty or taking advantage of each birdie opportunity, free and loose on the greens. He leads the tournament with authority and a two-stroke lead over his immediate pursuers and this circumstance has not made him change his plans, which were to go for a walk in Seville this Friday afternoon. So, peace here and glory afterwards, or whatever comes. Gros knows very well that the only certainty in golf is that it hardly provides any certainties to hold on to. A damn puzzle that should be treated with due respect, but without fear, almost with curiosity. After all, the years have turned him into a real expert in everything related to the mental aspect, so it’s no wonder he takes things with such composure: “I know this sport very well and tomorrow will be another day, maybe better or maybe worse, but the only thing I’m focused on is having a good day today, even though I’ve finished playing,” he explained at the end of the round, with that zen, balanced attitude.
– More fuel to the fire. Joel Moscatel (-5) started today at hole 10 and the swing, who knows how and why, was not the same. He was almost literally going from one side to the other from the tee, so the nine consecutive pars he signed were actually a small feat. Then things changed, we don’t know how and why, and some birdies started to fall… And some bogeys too. So, a damn puzzle. Whatever the case, this round of 71 by Moscatel is much more valuable than Thursday’s 68, without a doubt, because good players are better identified when things go wrong.
– Alfredo García Heredia (-5), the other Spaniard who, along with Moscatel, is holding up in the hot part of the table, within the top ten, is in another kind of puzzle, also typical of the world of golf. He comes from the United States, from Liberty National, where his cousin, Jorge Parada, a renowned coach, works, to review and retouch in depth every technical detail of the swing. It’s not easy to put your game together after such bodywork and paint repairs, but the Asturian, for now, is managing it. And enjoying it. “I’ve hit some very, very good shots again,” he said with a smile.
– And so we could go on. Víctor García Broto, one of the leaders of the first day, started today with a bogey on the 10th and a triple bogey on the 11th. And Gonzalo Fernández Castaño, another of Thursday’s standouts, also suffered the inclemencies of a round in which almost nothing came out… Both have missed the cut. The same goes for Wilco Nienaber, the young South African who some of us placed in the world’s top 50 as if it were nothing and who is still not able to align the planets, although this year he is not badly placed in the Challenge Tour ranking. We’ll have to keep waiting, only the damn golf knows until when.
