Alfredo García Heredia (-7) is co-leader of the Omega European Masters after the first round. He shares the first place with Alex Fitzpatrick (-7) after closing a capital round of golf with 63 strokes, full of excellent shots to green and without a single blot on the card.
The Asturian, who urgently needs good results to gain positions in the Race to Dubai, played today the third competition round of his life on the mythical course of the Crans Sur Sierre Golf Club in Crans Montana, as he had only played one edition of this tournament, in 2022, and had not made the cut. In fact, it is the first time he has managed to beat the course. What a way to do it: with the best card of the year and even of your life in the DP World Tour.
The best card of his life? It may just be a figure of speech, or maybe not, because the fact is that Alfredo had never signed a 63 in the 129 European circuit tournaments he had played to date, before this week’s in Swiss lands. “Today I played quite well from tee to green again, which was not happening to me in recent weeks. And then, once this solid game was recovered, the truth is that rounds like today’s I had already played a few this same year, but maybe I finished only two less… If the putt works more or less well, I’m not saying I’m going to play seven less every day, but I can make a good result,” the player explained to Tengolf shortly after finishing the round. Indeed, the Spanish player has been struggling all year on the greens, until he changed his putter in Germany and started to feel much better… But then he broke his driver in the Czech Republic, while now it was his long game that began to fail. Crazy. Today, in Crans, all the pieces have finally come together, although, it must be said, he has not needed a sublime or out of the ordinary performance on the greens to sign that 63. In fact, he finished his round on the 9th hole missing a birdie putt of about two meters to make 62 and, in the previous 17 holes, he only needed to sink a cigar of just over six meters to endorse that excellent series of five birdies and an eagle that has adorned his card. “I’m not very comfortable playing at altitude, I prefer to play at sea level, but it’s clear that so far things are going very well,” he points out.
Behind the Asturian, it is also worth highlighting the 67-stroke rounds of Ángel Hidalgo (-3), Iván Cantero (-3) and Nacho Elvira (-3). The three of them, like Alfredo, have taken very good advantage of the best playing conditions that have occurred in the afternoon shift, with much less wind. Adri Arnaus (-1) and Alejandro del Rey (-1) have also beaten the course, although they did it in the morning shift.
