Although with 18 holes left it can’t be said that all is lost, even less so on a course like the Champions Course at Keene Trace Golf Club in Nicholasville, Kentucky where really low scores can be achieved (this week we’ve seen a 61, two 62s, some 63s…), Ángel Hidalgo (-15)‘s chances of fighting for victory in the ISCO Championship have become quite complicated. Mainly due to a mess on two par fives, in the first half of his round, which made things very uphill for him.
On hole 5, after starting his ‘moving day’ with four pars, a bad recovery from the ‘rough’ with his third shot ended up, in the long run, costing him his first bogey of Saturday. The Marbella native reacted wonderfully with two consecutive birdies at 6 and 7, but on 8, the second par five of the course, a ball in the water pushed him back into error. And although Ángel did not give in and managed to straighten his card with birdies at 9, 15 and 17, a final bogey on 18, missing a putt of a metre and a half, took him out of the top 10 and pushed him even further away from the fight.
The first player to reach 20-under par.@RicoHoey takes the solo lead @ISCOChamp. pic.twitter.com/5qt5qJoqqi
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 13, 2024
In other words, instead of being able to win a couple more strokes from the course on two very favourable holes, he ended up losing them. Or in other words, he left between two and four strokes, approximately, which would have him very high up in the standings at this stage because no one has managed to pull away. Tomorrow he will start with a disadvantage of five strokes compared to American Pierceson Coody (-20), the sole leader, but with another 14 players ahead, which greatly complicates the equation.
The goal for Hidalgo, after his 70 today, should be to try to make as many birdies as possible, without looking any further, and see how far he can get depending on what happens in the last matches on Sunday. A year ago, in this event co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, he finished 30th tied with a 12 under par, a result that he has already improved, with 18 holes still to play, and hopes to smash by climbing as much as possible on the last and decisive day of competition in Kentucky.
