– Tapio Pulkkanen (-12), the sole leader of the Spanish Challenge, was also a star project a few years ago, just like Sebastien Gros (-9), as we noted yesterday, who today has lost the head of the tournament after handing in a card of 72 strokes. Both, Tapio and Sebastien, are also from the same generation (they are 33 and 34 years old). There are still those who cannot explain why the Finn did not manage to win a single tournament in the more than 150 he has played in his career on the DP World Tour and only boasts one victory in the Challenge, obtained more than seven years ago…
– Tapio finds it hard to win. Not only to win, but he finds it hard to get to that last third of the round on Sunday. We’ll see what happens tomorrow. Neither is Jamie Rutherford (-10) a whiz in this sense, who will accompany Pulkkanen in the star match tomorrow, Sunday, although the Englishman has so far been more of a true hard worker on the route, to understand us, who has not been seen up there many times. He has never won on the Challenge, the circuit where he has competed the most, but anyway, we would do better to give credit to this player, and to all those who are around the leading positions, because the challenge posed this week by the Real Club Sevilla Golf has been one of those that truly separate the wheat from the chaff.
– There is a third player in the star match on Sunday and it is none other than the Spaniard Joel Moscatel (-9). He is the one with the least experience of all in these matters, let’s make it clear, but let’s say something loud and clear: he surely has a lot to polish, to file down, a lot to learn and to suffer, but we probably find ourselves in front of one of those players who, a priori, is going to have something very interesting to say in European golf… And in the world? Well, while we’re at it, and said with all caution, also, in world golf too.
Let’s ask ourselves one more question:
Do we see Joel Moscatel absolutely prepared to get high grades in any scenario, against any type of rivals and on any circuit? Unfortunately, neither in life nor in golf two plus two are four, usually. Having said that, it is perfectly legitimate, fair (and even necessary) to say of this player that he has many more talents than the average, although his projection as a high competition player is still under construction. He may not have been a successful amateur, but the path he has taken in recent months is simply surprising and he shows things on the field of an extraordinary player. Let’s leave it there and let each one, little by little, draw conclusions. Getting to the top (to the top hundred in the world, for example?) is very expensive and Moscatel has just stepped on the launch ramp, but his progression is real, tangible and electric. And his resources on the golf course go beyond a great hit.
– It is not usual, but in a Challenge Tour tournament it can happen that a player goes out on the field, makes a birdie on the first hole and, while walking towards the tee of the 2, a cheerful girl about eight or nine years old approaches him and, encouraged by her father to overcome her shyness, gives him a bracelet that she has made herself… Alfredo García Heredia (-9), the lucky one, hung it from his bag very grateful and it’s going to stay there as long as it lasts. Let’s see, talisman, what is said talisman, it certainly has been, because the Asturian ended up signing one of the two bogey-free rounds that have been given in this third day of the Spanish Challenge.
We must remember that Alfredo is playing this week, but we probably won’t see him again on the Challenge Tour this season. His war is set in the first division, on the DP World Tour, even if he doesn’t have entry in all the tournaments he would like. So we’ll see how he does tomorrow, in the first place, and then on the European circuit, because maybe the word gets around and more than one bracelet order comes to the friendly, cheerful and generous Sevillian girl…
– We have already said it: only two bogey-free rounds at the Real Club Sevilla Golf this Saturday. The field continues to behave in an excellent way: it gives no respite and, on the other hand, allows the brilliance of those who are really excelling at golf. Today, if anything, the greens have shown themselves to be somewhat more generous, more ‘enterable’, especially for the first matches of the morning. This was acknowledged by Lucas Vacarisas (-6), for example, author of the best record of the day (round of 66 strokes), who indeed went out to play one of the first, although the two eagles he signed today are not given away anywhere… “Yes, I played very well, although I also dropped two bogeys due to lack of concentration”, he pointed out with a smile. The perfect round does not exist and much less this week in Seville, where it seems that the greens on Sunday will resemble more those of Thursday and Friday than those of Saturday. Good hustle, to understand us.
