– Alejandro del Rey (-5) is the provisional leader of the South African Open, once the morning round of play on the first day has concluded. The wind has been picking up since midday, and it won’t be easy for anyone to surpass the record of 65 strokes (par 70) by the Madrid native, although there’s a certain Patrick Reed coming up, a man in vogue on the DP World Tour and in world golf, who is not only unafraid of the wind but rather the opposite…
– And the fact is that, at first glance, it wasn’t easy to count on such a splendid start from Del Rey, as the course at the Stellenbosch Golf Club doesn’t seem at first to be the one that best suits his profile, with those very narrow fairways. Alejandro usually likes courses where you can let loose from the tee, and this is certainly not the case. Moreover, the Spaniard started playing from the 10th hole, and after the first eight holes, he was in a rather cold zone of the leaderboard with a score of one over, but he ended up signing a stellar score of six under for the last ten holes of his round, thus claiming the lead.
– We will have to wait until the end of the day to see if Del Rey finishes the day as the leader. It is well known that the Spanish Armada does not fare very well in this tournament, and, for example, only on one occasion has a Spaniard been at the top of the leaderboard after the first day. It happened a long time ago, in the 2007 edition: Carl Suneson finished the first round tied for the lead with South Africans Ernie Els (eventually the tournament winner) and Trevor Immelman, and the Englishman Andrew Raitt. Suneson would end that year as the best Spaniard in 27th place…
– The truth is that Del Rey is making many cuts this 2026 season (he only missed it in Qatar), but he hasn’t yet managed to close out a great week. He might do it where it was least expected, although if something also characterises this player, it is his brilliance. If there’s one thing geniuses are capable of, it’s surprising… “Maybe I wouldn’t have bet on myself on this course, this week,” he explains to Tengolf with a smile, once the round is over. “You can hit the driver, but it’s true that this week it helps a lot to be on the fairway. In the end, it’s also a course that, in my case, forces you to hit mid-irons to very small greens, which I wouldn’t say is my strong suit… But today I played very well, and it is very satisfying to see that you can compete even if the course doesn’t suit you perfectly.”
– Ángel Ayora (-3) is not the leader, but his start continues his good performances in Qatar and Kenya, with a very eventful card of 67 strokes that included a bit of everything: four bogeys, five birdies, and an eagle, finishing on the 9th hole, just like Del Rey, and making a birdie on the 8th hole, a long par 4 that would probably be one of the most difficult on the course by the end of the day and the week, if not the most difficult (in the morning round, there were only three birdies on this hole).
– The young Andalusian has lived up to the highest expectations, playing in one of the highlighted matches of the tournament alongside Casey Jarvis (-3) and Jayden Schaper (-2), the two young South Africans who seem best prepared to carry the banner of the previous generations of golfers from this country, so successful since the days of none other than Gary Player.
