Albert Boneta (-8) is the leader of the D+D Real Czech Challenge. He achieved this with nine final holes that were a joy to behold. The reality is that Royal Beroun Golf Club is a course that suits him perfectly and brings back great memories for the Spanish player.
A year ago, on this same course, he made his first cut on the still Challenge Tour, in what was his fourth event on the circuit. Not content with that, he finished among the top ten of the event. His first cut and his first top ten in the same combo. Not bad at all. As he acknowledges, he left Beroun a year ago with the clear conviction that he could compete against the best on the circuit. This Thursday, he demonstrated it again with an impressive scorecard of 62 strokes, on the par 70 Czech course. He is balancing his rights on the DP World Tour with the HotelPlanner Tour card. Despite the juggling, he is currently within the Final of the Road to Mallorca, mainly thanks to his fifth place in Abu Dhabi.
The reality is that nothing foreshadowed a round of this style. He teed off on the 11th hole with a simple round going one under par, 69th place at the end of the day, with a solitary birdie. What unfolded from that moment was remarkable. Seven birdies in eight holes to reach the top alongside Danny List.
When you ask him the key to the round, the man himself says words that might surprise: “The fundamental thing has been the patience I’ve had,” anyone who saw the almost consecutive seven birdies would not have said that was the great virtue of the round, but the Catalan explains it perfectly: “I’ve been getting very angry on the golf course for months, at the slightest thing that didn’t go my way, I got very irritated, and everything went a bit more awry, but I’ve started working with a sports psychologist on these things for a few weeks, and today I noticed it helped me a lot.” The golfer himself explains: “In the first eleven holes, I didn’t play badly, but I didn’t make any putts. Maybe a month ago, I would have let the anger take on a lot of importance, today I knew how to control it, and then when things went my way, the birdies came.”
Albert enjoys Beroun: “I really like courses with reachable par fours and not so long layouts (par 70, remember), and this is a clear example. I made the top ten a year ago, and now I’ve started in an unbeatable way.”
After enduring those ten holes, what happened in that second round was the real storm with the putter. Only one of the seven birdies in the second round came from less than two metres. Specifically, the one on the fifth hole of Beroun. The rest from three metres, five, three and a half, four, a chip in on the eighth, and from five metres on the last flag of the day. Only two putts from four and six metres escaped him, with both lips preventing a full house of birdies in the second round. Eleven putts in nine holes. The first thing this highlights is how sharp the Catalan player was with the irons. He gave himself one option after another without stopping. The second, and perhaps more evident, is that in that intermediate range of three to six metres, he excelled with the putter.
Among the rest of the Spaniards, although none particularly stood out, the good performances of Quim Vidal (-3) and Adri Arnaus (-3) are noteworthy. With scorecards of 67 strokes, they are in 34th place. You have to fly very low to get to the top. Lucas Vacarisas (-1), Rocco Repetto Taylor (-1), Víctor Pastor (-1), and Sebas García (PAR) have good chances of playing the weekend but will need to have a round similar to Vidal and Arnaus this Thursday in a cut that could go up to four under par.
