Whoever can, let them tie. The third round of the Acciona Open of Spain has served up a wonderful madness. No more. Three Spaniards in the star match on Sunday. And what three Spaniards: Ángel Hidalgo (-13), Jon Rahm (-11) and David Puig (-10). The bee’s knees. Although we all know that golf invites prudence, the victory should be among them.
Patrick Reed (-8) and Joe Dean (-8) are already five strokes from the lead and six are Jens Fahbring (-7) and Adri Arnaus (-7). Alfredo García Heredia (-6) is alone in sixth place. It seems very difficult that one of the top three, if not all three, does not play well enough to make it impossible for the rest.
It is also in some way a generational battle. Jon Rahm passed the baton to Ángel Hidalgo and the Malaga man did the same with David Puig. When one was about to turn professional, the other was at his best as an amateur. Rahm, always, as a reference, and there will undoubtedly be one of the tests of fire for Puig and Hidalgo. They have never seen themselves in a similar situation.
Yes, David has won on the Asian Tour, but it is nowhere near the same as a Spanish Open, in a star match, in Madrid and with Rahm by his side. Hidalgo, for his part, will start for the first time in his career as the leader of a DP World Tour tournament. Almost nothing. The biggest challenge of their careers against the best Spanish golfer since Severiano Ballesteros. Having said this, which is an undeniable reality, it must be said that both Hidalgo and Puig like the pace. They are not the ones who shrink. And as an example, serve the button this Saturday…
Hidalgo has done much more than hold on. He left with a four-stroke lead and goes to bed, after dinner with friends in the capital, with two over Jon, three over Puig and five over fourth place. Much more than hold on. Yes, sir. In fact, he has handed in a card of 68 strokes, three less, without being exactly comfortable with the swing. We would say he has been surviving. He is a gladiator. “I don’t know why today I was missing all the shots to the right. Something was going on there in the swing,” he explained at the end of the round.
We were talking on Ten Golf on Friday about the claw of Fede Valverde injected into Hidalgo’s vein. Today he has shown it again. He made two bogeys and immediately reacted with two birdies, followed on 3 and 4 (what a wonderful approach, what a wild balloon on 4) and on 13 and 15 (first with a shot from the rough, with the ball a little ugly and the second with a textbook shot). That of the 15 has been the shot of the day, with a manual wedge from 75 meters. He left it two palms from the hole. However, we must not leave behind the second shot of the 16. He missed the exit very to the right and got into a swarm of trees that seemed impossible. At least, for mortals.
“The hardest thing was to convince Win (Gonzalo Vicente, his caddie) that there was a hole and I could shoot to green. I don’t know how big the hole would be, but honestly few balls fit in there. Even so, I was unlucky because it touched some leaves, lost effect and that’s why it was further from the hole,” says the magician revealing the trick he kept in his hat.
Hidalgo will have a different pressure tomorrow than he has always felt during his career and we will have to see how he responds. We will see, but for now, to the pressure of the third round he has responded like an angel, including that final birdie putt of two meters on the 18 to leave with a two-stroke lead over the big favourite. It had to be put in. And he did. We could say that Hidalgo has so far passed eleven of the twelve tests of Asterix. He has the last and probably the hardest one left.
The wonderful madness of the Spanish Open is completed with the following:
– Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton and Jimmy Walker, tied in ninth position with -5.
– Shane Lowry and Alex del Rey with -4 in 14th place.
– Luis Masaveu, in his last amateur tournament, is 22nd with -3.
Practically impossible to have more incentives. A wonderful madness.
