France has won by a landslide against Denmark in the beautiful virtual duel they fought this Sunday at the Lubker Golf Resort in Aarhus. Using football terminology, we could say that we have had a Lubkerazo. Not only has a Frenchman, Frederic Lacroix (-14), won, but three others have made it into the top 5. Romian Langasque (-10) was second, David Ravetto (-9) was fourth and Adrien Saddier (-8) sneaked in fifth. Yes, that you hear in the background on the DP World Tour is the Marseillaise.
Lacroix’s victory has a fairly simple summary. If you go out to play in the penultimate match of the day and sign the best round of Sunday, it is normal that you take the victory. That’s what the 29-year-old Parisian golfer has done. He signed a card of 65 strokes, the best of the week for him, without bogeys, and took the victory with conviction.
He had been chasing it for a long time. He has been several times in the fight to win tournaments. In fact, he already had two thirds to his credit. It can be said that it is a victory that was seen coming. His 2024 season was being very good. He was peering into the top 30 of the Race to Dubai without having achieved a victory or a second place. The reason is that he already had six top 5 and eight top 20. He is a consistent golfer, one of those that his colleagues define with that phrase: “he doesn’t miss a stroke”.
This week he has shown off those credentials. On a very complicated course, treacherous, with a lot of wind every day, including this Sunday, with a more than tricky rough, water here and there, and more than one and two tense starts, it turns out that he clears the 72 holes with a balance of only six bogeys. A misery. Personally, in a way, it reminds of Victor Perez. They are players who do not tend to relate too much with others, they go on their own, they have clear objectives and they dedicate themselves to carry them out. Profession, golfers. Not much more.
Lacroix has finally also shown himself that he did not forget to win on the Alps Tour. In that circuit, on his debut as a professional, he achieved up to three victories in 2019 and finished third in the ranking. That’s how he moved up to the Challenge Tour. The pandemic years were not easy to move up to the DP World Tour, but he ended up achieving it in 2022. That year he lost the card by very little, finishing in 121st place, which provided him a category. In 2023 he combined DP World Tour and Challenge Tour and moved up again through the top 20 of the Road to Mallorca, not without leaving two top 10 in his few appearances in the first division. In a way, it is the chronicle of an announced victory.
Lacroix prolongs the state of ecstasy of French golf. It is the second consecutive victory of a French player on the DP World Tour, just seven days after the coronation of his good friend David Ravetto in Czechia. Curiously, today he was the first to wait for him at the card delivery to water him with champagne. They are both first-timers. Something big is brewing in France. Not only because of the victories, but because more and more different players are riding the winning wave. There has been at least one French victory on the DP World Tour uninterruptedly since 2011 and since 2020 seven different players have won: Lacroix, Ravetto, Pavon, Perez, Rozner, Langasque and Stalter.
The last time two Frenchmen won on the DP World Tour in two consecutive weeks were Thomas Levet and Gregory Bourdy in 2008, Andalusia Open and Estoril Open. That same year also a little earlier Gregory Havret and Jean Françoise Lucquin, in Scotland and Switzerland. Last season Antoine Rozner and Victor Perez won two DP World Tour tournaments in a row, although they were not consecutive weeks because the former won before the Christmas break and the latter prevailed at the end of January in Abu Dhabi, in the first tournament of the year.
As for the Spaniards, bad Sunday for Manuel Quirós (+1) and Rafa Cabrera Bello (+2). Both have made par and have barely moved from the lower part of the classification. The putter was the main enemy today of the Canary Islander, who missed seven birdie opportunities between a metre and a half and three metres.
