They say that when something is hard to achieve, once it is achieved, it tastes much better. If this is true, Mario Galiano must be dripping honey from the corners of his lips this Saturday afternoon. The golfer from Malaga has today claimed victory in the Hauts de France-Pas de Calais Golf Open, a tournament of the Alps Tour that has been held on the legendary course of St Omer. It is his first major victory as a professional, his debut in a tournament valid for the world ranking.
Ten years ago, when Mario was still 19, the bet that he would take a decade to achieve his first triumph of this caliber… or higher was not even quoted. Galiano was then one of the best amateurs in the world, the most outstanding of those who did not compete in the NCAA in the United States and he had exceptional duels every time against Jon Rahm. Sometimes the victory went to Barrika and other times to El Secadero.
But golf, as we have said many times, and professional sport in general, has inscrutable paths. What pointed to one of the greatest breakthroughs in Spanish golf got stuck. Mario waited to turn professional, perhaps too much. He did it to support the national teams, but personally it did not go well for him. He found it very difficult to adapt to his new life in golf and the good results did not come. Time and again he hit the wall of the DP World Tour School, the Alps choked him, in the Challenge he did not manage to have continuity and he even tried it in the PGA Tour Latin America, with some very good results, but again without regularity.
Surely, 98 percent of the players in his situation, a golfer used to winning, winning and winning again, would have thrown in the towel long ago. But Mario’s head only thinks about golf. His heart only feels golf. He has kept trying. He has tried everything. He has worked as hard as anyone. And, above all, the most important thing: he has never lost hope. He never doubted that he had the level to be up to the best.
For all these reasons, this victory in St Omer tastes like glory. He has broken a dam. Galiano has prevailed with two cards of 70 and 68 strokes in a tournament that had to be reduced to two days, instead of the usual three of the Alps, due to bad weather. He has prevailed with two ahead of the Tenerife player Álvaro Hernández Cabezuela, Benjamin Kedochim and Brandon Kewalramani. Mario, with a total of -4, has been the only golfer in the tournament who has been able to play under par both rounds.
He opens his record on a difficult course, where the results are always high, very tricky, tremendously affected by the wind. It is a DP World Tour course and there is Galiano showing what his real level is. Showing it to those who did not believe it, since he never had doubts.
This victory tastes even better because in no case can it be said to be the result of a coincidence. It is not a question of having a good week. Not at all. Mario has been playing well for a while. He has only missed three cuts all year and before this victory he had already been fourth in Egypt and has finished in the top 25 ten times. Ten times in fourteen tournaments. This is only within the reach of someone who is playing very well. In the Alps, in the Challenge or in the DP World Tour.
The victory allows him to take a giant leap in the Alps Tour ranking. He moves into sixth position, one step away from that top 5 that will get the Challenge card when the year ends, his main goal. Now it’s time to finish the job in the two remaining tournaments, both in Italy and both in October: Croara Alps Open and Alps Tour Grand Final. The mission is to finish in the top five of the order of merit and thus, finally, be able to organise a full calendar in the Challenge Tour, beyond what may happen in the DP World Tour School, where he has already passed the first phase.
