Jorge Campillo (-2) has handed in a 69-stroke card at the RBC Canadian Open, the second consecutive one, and has made the cut. At the time of signing his result, he was in the top 25 of the tournament, eight strokes behind the leader, the Scot Robert MacIntyre (-10). He is far from the lead, but if anything has been demonstrated by the man from Cáceres in his first two rounds at the Hamilton Golf & Country Club, it’s that he has more than enough arsenal to think that he can still cause a stir this weekend.
No one has made more birdies than the man from Extremadura in the first two days, at least until he finished playing this Friday and before the round is completed with the afternoon shift. He has made twelve birdies, six each day, a pace even better than those at the top, showing that he has plenty of firepower. But of course, the taste right now is bittersweet, as with those numbers he should be closer to the leader, so something is going wrong…
Specifically, Campillo’s main burden this week has been the game around the green and the long putts. It’s a peculiar course and in the first two days he has not managed to get the hang of the huge run-offs that surround the Canadian greens. He has left ten greens behind between Thursday and Friday and has only been able to recover four. The percentage today has been even lower, one out of five. Three of those bogeys have been with three putts, two from outside the green on holes 16 and 18 and one on the green on 1, just starting the day.
Even so, it cannot be said that Jorge’s problem this week are the greens, far from it. He has been brilliant and has made very good birdie putts between two and five meters. The only burden are the long putts and the run-offs. If he manages to understand them and get used to the speed between this afternoon and tomorrow morning, we can see a great version of Jorge this weekend. That is the hope that he can even get into the fight for the win.
Jorge started a little more irregular from tee to green in the first six today, with a score of two over par, but from 7 on he has really played, he has caught most of the fairways and has hit good shots to green, except for the par 3s, which have crossed him. Even so, there have been six birdies in the last eleven holes today. That’s firepower and invites optimism for the remaining 36 holes. The main goal is to do very well to get into the Memorial and the Travelers and avoid a trip to Sweden. Certainly, the incentive is huge.
MacIntyre is the provisional leader of the tournament after signing 36 holes without any mistakes. As a good Scot, he moves well in the run-offs. That’s the difference with Campillo this week. He has missed the same number of greens, ten, but MacIntyre has recovered all. He has a three-stroke lead over Andrew Novak (-7), David Skinns (-7) and Mackenzie Hughes (-7), author of the best round of the day so far with 64 strokes.
The course continues to play hard and complicated. There are very few rounds that have been made of three under par or less. That’s why Jorge has recovered positions with his second round of 69 strokes. Rory McIlroy is playing in the afternoon shift, starting from a score of -4.
