Rafa Cabrera Bello (+2) and Pablo Ereño (+2) have started the Nexo Championship with rounds of 74 strokes. It can’t be said to be spectacular, but their result is much more valuable than it might initially seem. The reason is that both played in the afternoon, and the afternoon was about three times more difficult than the morning. This is not an exaggeration; it’s based on numbers.
A total of 26 players finished the day under par. Of these, only six did so in the afternoon: Louis Albertse (-5), who was the afternoon hero, Alex Fitzpatrick (-3), Joe Dean (-3), Matthew Baldwin (-3), John Catlin (-1), and David Micheluzzi (-1).
Continuing on, of the 42 who finished with a score of PAR or better, only 15 played in the afternoon. The proportion remains the same. And of the 61 who handed in cards of +1 or better, only 22 went out to play from noon local time in Aberdeen. In other words, the Trump International Golf Links was three times more difficult in the afternoon than in the morning.
Interestingly, more than one of those playing in the afternoon celebrated when they found out the order of play on Tuesday. The DP World Tour meteorologist’s forecast was exactly the opposite. It was expected that the afternoon would be better than the morning. The truth is that lately, the weatherman hasn’t been having much luck on the European circuit.
Be that as it may, if we only look at the afternoon results, Rafa and Ereño occupied the 23rd position. It’s not the round of their lives, far from it, but it’s not bad at all. They’ve done more than just hold their own. As long as, of course, the weather gives them a break and favours them tomorrow morning when they go out to play the second round.
Rafa made four birdies but paid a high price on two par threes (holes 3 and 16). In both cases, he missed to the left and ended up with a double bogey. In both cases, recovery was very complicated. And there can’t be many complaints about the putt, as three of his four birdies were from more than three metres.
Ereño, on the other hand, managed to hold on when it seemed the round could slip away from him. He must have almost cried with emotion upon arriving at a professional tournament where pars are good, and not the birdie fest that the Korn Ferry Tour becomes every week. He found himself four over par, but two birdies on the last two holes put him in a great position to make the cut this Friday. Precisely, the cut is currently at +2.
The situation is more difficult for the rest of the Spaniards who played in the afternoon: Sebas García (+4), Joel Moscatel (+5), Alfredo García Heredia (+6), and Iván Cantero (+7). They are all on the ropes.
