It couldn’t be. The first victory in South Africa of our players in the Challenge Tour will have to wait, but that will not tarnish a week with many positive things for two of our players in Mandela’s land. Great Spanish loot rescued by Víctor Pastor and Quim Vidal in a super complicated week at the Dimension Data Pro Am. Pastor gets on the podium for the third time in his career (two second places) and adds a good handful of points for the Road to Mallorca. He adds 120 points this week and ranks ninth in the race to be one of the top twenty of the year. There’s still a long way to go, but the Andalusian’s work is starting to bear fruit. Quim Vidal, the other Spaniard left in the fray, has finished within the top 20. Very good news.
The one who has achieved his first victory in the Challenge has been the French David Ravetto who has managed to administer with great solvency the two-stroke advantage with which he started. The last round was played at Montagu, a course where the Frenchman had debuted in the tournament with a solid four under par. He didn’t even have to repeat those numbers. A consistent 69 with four birdies and one bogey were enough to make his debut in the second division of the European Circuit.
Let’s remember that Ravetto currently has a European Circuit card. He regained playing rights on the tour through the School just a few weeks after finishing the season in 132nd place in the Race to Dubai and arrived in South Africa intending to regain sensations after not making the cut in his last three tournaments and why not have the Challenge route open for a possible category improvement next year in the first division. Wish granted and opportunity seized. First victory in the Frenchman’s pocket after having tried it on 46 previous occasions. It should be noted that Ravetto is a player who has not gone unnoticed on the DP World Tour and his own circuit colleagues highlight how well he hits the ball. Watch out for the Frenchman. In second position finished Sam Hutsby after delivering a final card of 68 strokes.
Returning to the Spaniards, today Víctor Pastor was four strokes off the lead and needed to emulate yesterday’s result, seven under par, to dream of having options to overtake the Frenchman. The Spaniard started with a birdie that made us dream of a big day at Fancourt State Golf. The key in Montagu is to scratch as many birdies as possible in the par fives as Víctor himself highlighted yesterday and perhaps that’s where the Cordoban has missed the opportunity to dream of something more this afternoon. If yesterday his cumulative was four under par in as many par fives, today the cumulative has been par. Four strokes difference that are what he has lacked in the end to tie with the head. A four-meter putt on hole 18 has prevented him from being third alone. Insufficient we say to lift the cup, but not to detract from a great result. “To win I had to repeat yesterday and it was very complicated, also because of how the flags were today. It was a pity the bogey on hole three where I went into the water. In the second round I had some opportunities that slipped away by little and that could have given me the opportunity to aspire to something more, but the week in general is good”, the Spaniard summarized to Ten Golf a few minutes after finishing his last round. Happy with the result, but with the aftertaste of knowing that he wants and can achieve something more.
Very tough week that the players have had to face this week due to adverse weather conditions. Physical and mental exhaustion to which they have been demanded in the rotation of the three courses. Let’s not forget that Víctor had to face The Links, the toughest course of the tournament, on the day with the highest intensity of wind and rain. Pastor has managed to overcome the five over par he signed on that second day with a total of sixteen under par in the other three rounds. The mentality and the game are there, it just needs to align in those four rounds. It will come, sooner rather than later, don’t doubt that it’s going to come.
On the other hand, Quim Vidal has not managed to give the blow he was looking for to get into the fight for the victory and has signed a card of 74 strokes that have not prevented him from getting into the top twenty of the tournament. Three tournaments, two cuts surpassed and a top twenty. It’s not a bad start for a newcomer to the Challenge Tour.
The South African tour is coming to an end with a peculiarity. No local player has managed to win in the three opening tournaments of the year. In the four preceding years this had never happened. Next week they will have the last chance to remedy it and hopefully some Spaniard will take care of preventing it.
