Nacho Elvira (-14) is the sole leader of the Soudal Open after delivering a second consecutive card of 64 strokes. These are the best first 36 holes of his career. He had never started a tournament so low. It is said soon. Between the DP World Tour and the Challenge Tour, the Cantabrian had played a total of 334 championships. He has done so far in Belgium, therefore, it is already very special.
Second card of 64 strokes. Second day of seven under par. Second round with seven birdies and no bogey. Second round in which even more birdies could have fallen, since he has left some clear occasion along the way. The clinic continues. Golf of many carats to present his serious candidacy for victory next Sunday. Of the seven birdies, six have been with putts below three meters. The longest he has put in has been three and a half meters in hole 5. It has been a festival.
To date, his best 36 initial holes in the DP World Tour had been in Switzerland, year 2022. He started with two cards of 65 strokes and finished in ninth position. Meanwhile, in the Challenge Tour, his best start before the cut was in the Rolex Trophy of 2015. He signed two cards of 63 and 65 to start and ended up taking the tournament. The precedents, therefore, are not bad at all. In Wales in 2021, in his only victory to date on the European Circuit, he started with two rounds of 64 and 67 strokes.
One more day, as happened yesterday, Nacho has displayed a huge golf at the Rinkven International Golf Club in Antwerp. He has barely missed two exits, at 6 by little to the rough, hitting the driver, and at 2 with an iron, where he had to hole a two-meter putt for par, the only possibility of making a bogey he has had in 18 holes. Masterful. The rest has been immaculate. “Very orderly,” he sentences to Ten Golf the Santander resident in Madrid.
Elvira has a one-stroke advantage over Ross Fisher (-13), author of the lowest round of the day (63) tied with Gunner Wiebe (-7), three over Romain Langasque (-11) and four over Andrew Wilson and Niklas Norgaard (-10). Thomas Pieters (-9) and Matthew Baldwin (-9) are also at the top.
The playing conditions in Belgium this Tuesday are very humid. It has been raining since the beginning of the day, non-stop. It is a very fine, light rain, almost a drizzle, but it does not stop falling. This causes the game to be a bit more uncomfortable, but at the same time it makes the greens more receptive.
Another of the great protagonists of the day has been Sebastián García Rodríguez (-8). The Madrid golfer has also signed a card of 64 strokes and has positioned himself in the top 10. It was a round without bogeys and with some exceptional second nine holes where he signed 30 strokes.
In the same way, they have amply ensured their continuity in the tournament until Sunday Adrián Otaegui (-6), with a card today of 68, Pablo Larrazábal (-5), who made 67, Manu Elvira (-5), who delivered a result of 68 and Sant Tarrio (-4), another of the names of the day, as he has signed an exceptional comeback to get into the cut with a card of 64 strokes.
On the contrary, Alfredo García Heredia and Alejandro del Rey have been left out.
