Joel Moscatel (-14) has won the Challenge of Spain, the 69th victory of Spanish golf in the 35-year history of the Challenge Tour. The record is not bad, although it is only that, a record. But it is very possible, even probable, that this victory will have a greater meaning over time, as we are dealing with a player who is predicted, if you prefer, a long and successful journey.
There may be those who frown at such a statement, as Moscatel’s career in high-level golf, with 25 years already completed, is not to date a prodigy of successes and results, not even after this triumph at the Real Club Sevilla Golf. And he was neither a winner nor an outstanding player in his amateur stage. However…
We are dealing with a peculiar case, there is no doubt. And perhaps an explanation from his coach for five years, Alex Larrazábal, will shed the necessary light to understand this phenomenon. “Joel is a player with enormous talent and exceptional abilities since he was very young (he started playing golf before he was five years old) and, in addition, he is a great athlete, with great coordination, to the point that I have always thought that he would have been successful in any sport he had chosen… Well, as I see it, all this has made things easy for him and in the end it has not helped him to develop other areas that are very important, such as character or trade. This, applied to golf, can be specified in decision-making on the course, which was never one of his strong points. Some time ago we saw that the help of a good caddie could make up for these deficiencies, as has been demonstrated this week with Alberto Calvo in the bag”.
Moscatel still has a long way to go in the task of gaining experience and trade, but his victory this Sunday has not been the product of any cheap fluke. None of them are at these levels, by the way. But much less this week’s. For several reasons.
The first. The scenario. Granted, a player who hits very long and very straight, as is his case, was well suited to the course of the Real Club Sevilla Golf. But this week, on this course, you had to play a very high level of golf to sign four cards under par (only eight players have achieved it), three of them under seventy strokes. Those fast and firm greens, especially firm, have caused more than headaches.
The second. It’s not that he has won, it’s how he has won. It was the first time that Joel Moscatel came out in the last match of the decisive round in a professional tournament and his deployment has been more than notable. In fact, to win he had to sign the second best result of the day, a card of 67 strokes on a course, it must be insisted, where birdie options are not given away. He has done it, moreover, without it being said that he has had a great day with the putter in his hands, one of those days when everything goes in and the task is greatly simplified. And there’s more: Moscatel started strong (birdie on hole 1), but then he really got down to business, tempering his nerves, and when it came to the crunch, the last nine, he raised his level of play.
The third. His direct rivals have resisted until the end. No one has handed him anything, with partials under par in the last third of the round.
The fourth. Among those direct rivals was a player, the Dane Rasmus Neergaard Petersen, who is the best to date and by far on the circuit, to the point that he was looking for his third victory of the season in Seville, which would have catapulted him straight to the DP World Tour. We’ll see where the young Dane ends up this year, but he already has his place in the first division of European golf secured for 2025, whether or not it’s the fast track, and he’s also heading straight to the top hundred in the world with a tremendous naturalness and speed, still being a Challenge Tour player.
And the fifth. There are shots and situations that separate the good from the very good. Moscatel’s bunker shot on hole 11 is one of those shots and one of those situations. As he himself has acknowledged, he was in more of a bogey position than anything else on this par 3, as he had to get the ball out of the sand trap towards a rather short flag that also received on a vertiginous downhill slope. Well: he plugged it in for a clean, crystal clear and gentle birdie. Later, on the 18th, sensing that he needed the birdie to go to the playoff (he was not sure that it was actually to win), he hit a majestic second shot from the rough, with just the right amount of backspin to avoid going into the water and when in the manual of the merely mortal what it says is that, in such a situation, you have to take the ball to the center of the green and then we’ll see what we do…
Fortunately or unfortunately, the task on the Challenge Tour is arduous and extremely complicated. Regularity in excellence is rewarded and valued like nowhere else. Even with this victory, the Spaniard does not have a place among the top twenty at the end of the season secured, which are the ones who get the playing rights of the DP World Tour. So Joel is going to have to keep pushing and showing up there again and again. Today, right now, after such a display, it almost seems impossible to us that he won’t achieve it, once he has unleashed and ordered his enormous talent.
