Albert Boneta (-22) has secured his DP World Tour card this Thursday at the Final Stage of the Qualifying School held at Infinitum Golf. The 23-year-old golfer from Barcelona will be able to debut next week in Australia with full rights just two and a half months after turning professional. He finished this long tournament of six rounds and seven days with a scorecard of 66 strokes at the Lakes course, fourth position. Simply impressive.
The young player trained at the University of New Mexico has broken into the elite with astonishing speed and calmness. Behind that shy personality and innocent face lies a true warrior. Today was not an easy day, and he managed it with the composure of a veteran, responding to each tough moment with a smile and even discussing it with a good group of friends who came to see and support him in this decisive round.
His extraordinary success had several crucial moments this Thursday. The first was the start of the day. He managed to finish the fifth round with a par on the 17th and a good birdie on the 18th hole to gain an even better cushion for the sixth and final round. He started with a three-stroke lead over the 20th position. Remember that today they first had to finish what was left pending on Tuesday after the suspension due to a thunderstorm that prevented the completion of the fifth round and could not continue yesterday due to the red alert for rain declared in Tarragona.
Immediately after, he began the sixth and final round with two more birdies on holes 1 and 2. He was at -19. Majestic. Three (almost) consecutive birdies that shot him up the leaderboard and, above all, gave him an excellent safety net for the rest of the round. Even so, it was not all plain sailing. Not at all.
The complications started on the 5th hole. Albert missed the drive to the right, and the second shot ended up in the bunker. From the sand, he made a sensational recovery. On the next hole, more problems. He sent the drive into the water on the left. He dropped and his third shot wasn’t good either, off the green. His recovery shot ended about five metres away, and he made the putt for bogey. That +1 stretch where it could have been +2 or +3 was crucial, as the card was finally secured at -18.
His reaction to that bad moment was a fantastic birdie on the 7th, a par 3, with a great putt from about four metres, another great birdie on the 9th, and one more on the 11th, sinking another good putt from about six metres. On the 13th, he brought out the magic again. It’s a short par 4 that goes for the green. Boneta missed to the left, near the water, but followed with an outstanding recovery lob that left him very close for birdie. Right after, he made a bogey on the 14th, but at no point did he seem nervous, or at least he kept it inside.
He still managed to get two more birdies on the 16th and 17th, but the ball hit the hole and didn’t go in, finishing with a great birdie on the 18th, with a putt of about three metres, for a total of -22. Albert is one of the mere ten players out of the 156 who started this School that finished with all six rounds under par. If anything has been demonstrated this week, it’s that he has many golfing skills to achieve results. He hits the ball very well from tee to green when he’s on form, and if things don’t go the usual way, he brings out his great short game and fantastic determination with the putt.
In this way, Boneta joins Ángel Ayora and Joel Moscatel as the Spaniards who will debut next season on the DP World Tour. Young and fearless.
On the other hand, the other three Spaniards who made the cut finished with a good round under par, although there was no miracle. They would have needed an extraordinary -11 and -12 to reach the -18 that was finally set as the cut for the top 20 and ties. Sebas García (-10) finished with 68 strokes, Borja Virto (-9) ended with 68, and Adri Arnaus (-9) scored 69.
