A 300 metre whack and a wedge less than 80 centimetres from the hole is the best medicine against nerves. It’s prescribed by general practitioners. Ángel Hidalgo (-10), obedient, has followed the prescription to the letter this Friday at hole 10, the first of the day for him, and the butterflies in his stomach have been calming down. Because they are there, always. But it’s best if they don’t flutter all day.
The Malaga-born admits he was tense on his first tee of the day, right after having the usual phone conversation with his mother before going out to play. A ritual. However, he quickly calmed down when he saw that the game was still there, untouched. Nothing had changed from Thursday. Textbook birdie on the 10th, great shot on the 11th and magnificent birdie again after sinking a two-metre putt. “That start was important, it gave me peace of mind,” he confesses.
Hidalgo is playing very well, but no one is going to get his feet off the ground. He doesn’t give up on anything, but he doesn’t get carried away either. “The big favourite here is still Jon Rahm (-5) and then Patrick Reed (-5). Is Jon going to win for sure, one hundred percent? Well, let’s leave it at 99 percent, leave that one percent for me,” he smiled.
It wasn’t an easy day for Ángel, leading for the first time in his career at the Acciona Open de España. Even if it’s only the first day, you have to get there, on the first tee, see the leaderboard and hit the starting shot. That’s why, after doing so well, with five birdies and only one bogey, the word that comes to mind to describe his round of 67 strokes today is “pride”. It was a test passed and tomorrow will be a new one. Step by step.
Hidalgo is clear that he will still have to play very well the next two days to have a chance of victory on Sunday. He will also need grit, but he has plenty of that. He has it to spare. Just in case, this Tuesday, before the start of the Acciona Open de España, he stopped by the official Real Madrid store to compare a shirt. Which one? “Well, Fede’s, always Fede’s,” he assures Ten Golf. Why Valverde? “It’s clear, for the grit, for the courage he has, for the balls he puts in. I identify a lot with him,” he says. No one who knows Hidalgo even a little bit can be surprised by this choice.
Ángel has been playing very well at golf for a while. He assures that in Wentworth last week he was even better. Today he has given a demonstration with the wedges. Always with the same type of shot: a first long bounce on the green, a second a little shorter and to stop it on the third very close to the hole. He has given a clinic. That’s how the birdies on the 8th, 10th and 14th arrived. The other one, on the 2nd, came after a sovereign twelve-metre putt.
The birdie on hole 8, his penultimate, was very important. He was coming from an always unpleasant incident on his round. On the 6th green, a referee penalised him with a bad time for slow play. He had already exceeded the set time by 19 seconds and had stepped away from the ball to remove an insect. What does a bad time mean? In principle, nothing, but it puts you on the edge, on the wire. The next one he receives in the tournament will be a penalty stroke. It’s something like a sword of Damocles. It’s not pleasant. He felt the impact of the referee’s decision on the 6th, as his putt was not good, and on the 7th tee, missed far to the right. There he made a good par. “I would have been very annoyed to make a bogey there,” he confessed. That’s why the birdie on the 8th is so valuable.
Be that as it may, Hidalgo is calm. He planned to have lunch with some friends and take another walk around the Bernabéu store this afternoon. And if something else from Fede falls, the better, all the reserves of grit are few for what lies ahead.
