– There is no doubt that the fight for that spot (or spots, if there end up being two) on the European Ryder team is the main attraction of this Omega European Masters, which has finally completed the second round, established the cut, and will leave the third round, the moving day, on Saturday, well advanced by the end of the day, although not closed, far from it.
– And in this battle, as already explained, there is someone who has taken the lead, and it is none other than the perennial Matt Wallace (-12), who has never played in a Ryder, but who lives and suffers each qualifying year more than anyone else for quite a few editions now. Wallace, with his total of -12 in two rounds, has not yet gone out to play today; he will do so this afternoon. Neither has Marco Penge (-4), who will need two formidable final rounds of golf at the Crans Sur Sierre Golf Club to keep his Ryder chances alive. Matt Fitzpatrick (-8) has played his second round, and he was falling behind, but in the final stretch of the round, he jumped on Wallace’s train when it was already moving and gaining speed…
– Fitzpatrick had already played thirteen holes this morning, and his score was PAR, so he was nine shots off the lead and eight behind Wallace, a distance that was starting to become excessive. However, the Englishman finished with four consecutive birdies in that last third of the round to tell us that he is still here. It must be emphasized: it seems that Wallace started this week with far fewer chances than Penge and Fitzpatrick, but a resounding victory on Swiss soil could still make Donald and his vice-captains reconsider the matter… After all, he closed last week in the twelfth position in the qualifying year, just behind Fitzpatrick, eleventh, with a mere 18-point difference, and ahead of Penge (14th). In any case, there is still a long way to go.
– Notable has also been the effort of Ángel Ayora (-5) and Álex del Rey (-5), with rounds of 66 and 67 shots, respectively, although it seems insufficient to fully get into the fight for victory. It will depend on how inspired they are this afternoon, in the third round, to clarify what their objectives will be or if they could still fight for the win. Manu Elvira (-4), Ángel Hidalgo (-4), and Nacho Elvira (-4) are in a similar situation. If they can deliver something like the best score in the third round, they will still appear on the radar where the real action takes place. Iván Cantero (-3), for his part, has played over par, but he has also just made it into a cut that went to -3, leaving out Eugenio Chacarra (-2), Jorge Campillo (-2), and Alex Noren (-2), whose remote Ryder chances are now definitively extinguished.
