Hole 12 of the Zebula Estates Golf Club. Par 4 of 326 meters. Second day of the SDC Open. First tournament of the year of the Challenge Tour. On the tee, Ángel Ayora. He doesn’t hesitate. He grabs the driver and aims for the flag. Bomb goes. Majestic shot. The ball bounces on the green, in line with the flag and ends up sixty centimeters from the hole for albatross. Another galaxy. Given eagle. “These are the things of Ángel, capable of hitting drives as precise as a 5 iron”, assures Juan Ochoa, his coach and caddie.
Ayora (-10), who started yesterday with a golf recital, has not been able to maintain the same pace, but enough to stay fully in the fight. He has made 69 strokes and has placed himself in fifth place, only two from the leaders, Louis Albertse, Alex Levy and Rhys Enoch, all of them with -12. In fourth place is Anthony Michael with -11. There are 29 players separated only by five strokes.
It is not usually easy to continue a round of golf as good as the one Ayora signed on Thursday (65). Much less when the first day you play in the morning and the second in the afternoon. There are many hours to think about, to think about the situation you have in the tournament. Perhaps for this reason, Ángel has come out today a bit more conservative, trying to protect the great booty obtained the day before. In this way, after a warm-up in which he has not finished feeling comfortable, he has started with a bogey on the 1. Really, the swing did not flow in the first nine holes today. The best news is that he settled this partial with a par result.
Even more positive was his reaction in the second nine holes today. He has started to hit the ball much better and to be more aggressive. He made a birdie on the 10, the aforementioned eagle on the 12, another birdie on the 15 and a bogey on the 16. Pity that last mistake after a three-putt and the birdie that escaped him on the 18 chipping for eagle from about ten meters.
Be that as it may, he is fully in the fight for victory with 36 holes left. Also in the battle are the other two Spaniards who made the cut and whom we could call the next gen. We are talking about Quim Vidal (-8) and Joel Moscatel (6). Both have handed in cards of 65 and 66 strokes and are in the mix. Their rounds have been cut by the same pattern. They have played very orderly, making very few mistakes and getting a good return on the putt. Those rounds of the so-called boring ones and that are anyone’s dream. Vidal has handed in the fourth best result of the day with a bogey-free card and Moscatel, very similar, round with six birdies and no mistakes. “It has been a very cool day and it was not easy, there was tension. The key is that I managed to play more calmly than yesterday, when I came out with a certain eagerness to do things”, explains the Catalan to Ten Golf.
The rest of the Spaniards have been left out of a demanding cut that has been set at -4. Javier Sainz (-3) was very close with a great round of 68 strokes, with two birdies and an eagle, while Lucas Vacarisas, Borja Virto, Víctor Pastor and Alejandro Cañizares have been left further behind.
