Two players have stood out at the top of the Black Desert NI Open leaderboard after the third day, the Swede Joakim Lagergren (-15), who has taken command of operations after signing an extraterrestrial 61, and the Irishman Conor Purcell (-14), who started today as leader and maintains his chances of victory after handing in a card of 65 strokes. Between the two of them, the winner should be tomorrow, as the next in the table, the Frenchman Robin Sciot Siegrist (-9), is already five strokes behind Purcell.
Now that we are in the midst of the Olympic Games, let’s say that both the Gaul and his immediate pursuers will go out tomorrow to fight for the bronze medal, although the unpredictable (and treacherous) nature of golf always requires caution with ‘logical’ predictions. Be that as it may, one of those who can still aspire to that bronze, and we’ll see if to something else, is Álvaro Quirós (-6), who today has chained his third round under par (round of 67 strokes), a circumstance that speaks for itself about the solidity of his game throughout the week, although it should also be pointed out that this Saturday the playing conditions have been slightly better than Thursday and Friday, with less wind.
Quirós, who started the round missing a short birdie putt on hole 1, has only made one serious mistake and it was from the middle of the fairway on hole 4, which ended in double bogey, but in general he has controlled the situation and has hit many greens in regulation (15/18), also sinking two birdie putts between five and six metres on holes 9 and 17. The putter has indeed been his battle horse this week (and in general in recent months…), but today it cannot be said that this area of the game has been a burden, although he still feels some insecurity when he stands over the ball on the greens.
Beyond adding as much as he can to the Challenge Tour, the medium and long term goal of the Andalusian player is “to continue building something solid and in that sense I am very satisfied, because on Thursday and Friday I played great golf in very complicated conditions, but without putting almost anything on the greens, and today, without being so brilliant, the game has been solid again”, he told Tengolf after finishing the round.
Ángel Ayora (+2) and Lucas Vacarisas (+2), the other two Spaniards in play at the Galgorm course, have not been able to win the match against the course today, with rounds of 72 and 71 strokes, respectively, in this par 70.
