Haydn Barron signed the card for the sixth round of the last Final of the European circuit school and, once he confirmed that he had secured the playing rights of the DP World Tour for the 2024 season (he did it comfortably with a ninth place in said Final), he called his girlfriend on FaceTime and started to cry. Now his life had indeed changed, this 28-year-old Australian who, in times of pandemic, was fired from his job at the Western Australian Golf Club shop and then had to dedicate himself to greenkeeper duties…
He has never won a professional tournament valid for the world ranking, although he was close on a couple of occasions on the PGA Tour Australasia circuit and, in addition, he scraped a fourth place in the 2022 Australian Open, thus getting into the Royal Liverpool Open. That was a great moment, but the one at the School in Infinitum Golf, in Tarragona, was really the moment of truth, the moment of confirmation.
Today, almost three months later, the matter has become even more serious. Haydn Barron (-9) leads the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters with authority, after signing a splendid 67 today and once the morning round of play on the second day has ended, with a three-stroke lead over Zander Lombard (-6, today round of 71), and four over Rasmus Hojgaard (-5), among others, who today has put the turbo with a round of 66 strokes. The Dane will therefore be a major factor to consider over the weekend.
Barron will also be, of course, a player who does well in difficult conditions, demanding courses, as he demonstrated in that Australian Open (there, he holed from the sand for eagle on hole 72, thus getting into the Open…) or in the second phase of the European circuit school in Las Pinaillas (Albacete), where the players suffered a lot with the wind and he just got a place in the Final.
Barron has today been fed up with hitting greens in regulation at a Doha Golf Club that continues to show itself as a tough opponent, with those hard greens and a wind that keeps helping him. The Australian finished with four birdies in the last five holes to shoot up the table and his face at the end of the round could not convey more joy.
Alejandro del Rey (-2), for his part, has signed a round of 71 strokes, one less on the day, which is not bad at all considering the playing conditions, but which will have left him with a bitter taste after missing several short putts, especially in the final stretch of the round. Beyond Barron, however, the tournament remains very tight, so there is room for manoeuvre (Del Rey is only four strokes from second place, for example).
Several Spanish players with the second round already finished have stayed at the PAR accumulated, right on the cut line. This is the case of Alfredo García Heredia (PAR, today round of 71), Sebas García (PAR, today round of 71), Santi Tarrio (PAR, today round of 73) and Adrián Otaegui (PAR, today round of 73). Iván Cantero (+1, today round of 72) has it worse, because it seems that his total score is moving away from the cut line as the hours go by. Finally, note that Álvaro Quirós (+9) has today given himself the consolation of signing an outstanding round of 69 strokes without a single blot on the card, after the horrendous 84 on Thursday that had already left him out of play. No one understands this sport…
