Laurie Canter (-12) and Guido Migliozzi (-12) are the two leaders of the European Open after the third day. The leadership has not moved much, or rather not at all, as Canter started today with -12 as the outstanding leader. That’s the thing about this course: good rounds are seen, it’s possible to get a handle on it, but in the same way one can get tangled up and either get stuck, or simply fall and fall and fall…
Canter, today, has stood still. Migliozzi, however, has pushed his own, has signed a 67 and, starting six strokes from the head, it turns out that he is now co-leader. And then, of course, there is the case of Iván Cantero (-8). The Asturian started today very far from the head, very far, eleven strokes, to be precise, but he has signed the best record of the day, round of 66 strokes, seven less, and now there is no choice but to include him among the candidates for victory.
Iván was not bored today. It was impossible for him to be. First, of course, because one never gets bored when the birdies are falling. And second, because there are ways and ways to make birdies, and even pars, and Cantero has chosen some very entertaining ones today. For example, on hole 12 (he started on the 10th to play) he missed the left exit and the right green shot, he was not particularly fine with the approach and yet he ended up saving par by putting from the collar. And what about the 15th? On this par 5 he missed the exit with a hook to the left (in fact, he hit a provisional), found the ball, was forced to take it to the street without hardly gaining distance and then hit an iron shot about 235 meters from the flag and left a great birdie option from less than two meters…
On the 18th he converted the eagle going for a short and cornered flag, so well defended by the water. Iron 6 from about 195 meters, putt of just over three meters in and on to the next thing…
And pay attention to this series that could have been signed by Houdini himself: on hole 3 he putted a pure fifteen meters for birdie; on the 4th he plugged it from the rough for birdie, with an approach of about 14 meters; on the 5th, par 3, he left the ball hanging from the cup, about to make the hole in one; and on the 6th he putted it again from the rough, also from about fifteen meters… Nothing more to add.
Rafa Cabrera Bello (-7) we are also going to include in the group of candidates for victory. The Canary Islander came with a very well worked round, although neutral in terms of result, and yet he finished with three birdies on holes 16, 17 and 18, a blessed sprint that took him to the top ten and will have helped him to get rid of more than one thorn, because in recent times the opposite usually happened to him: rounds that were more or less well arranged and that ended in the worst way, to the point, even, of cruelly making him miss the cut at the last gasp.
Pablo Larrazábal (-5), on the other hand, has fallen slightly behind with a round of 74 strokes, although he is sure to still want to show up in some way. Among the candidates, the presence of several who have not yet been able to win on the DP World Tour stands out, starting with Laurie Canter himself and continuing with the young and electric Frenchman Tom Vaillant (-10), the German Yannik De Bruyn (-10), who is the great ‘discovery’ of the week, the imposing Dane Nikas Norgaard (-9) or the young South African Jayden Schaper (-8), in addition to Iván Cantero. Along with them, an old dog like Bernd Wiesberger (-9), a title defender like Tom McKibbin (-8), as well as Migliozzi, who has long since opened the can and has three victories.
