Samuel Espinosa (PAR) has survived with more than dignity one of those horrible days that the god Eolo offers to golf players. The Spaniard started at the top of the leaderboard at the Vic Open, but a very unfavourable turn on a crazy day has dropped him to even par for the course. Only three players managed to break the 70-stroke barrier, and all three teed off in the other session. The Cantabrian went six over par for the day.
The reading, despite everything, is more than positive. His great start on Thursday has allowed him to make his first cut in the PGA of Australia, more than that, he is among the top twenty with chances for great results and 36 holes ahead. He is the only non-Australian in the top twenty. The resilience. After 18 months of competitive limbo, Samu feels more comfortable every day.
Although this Friday can be described as anything but comfortable. Infernal conditions, more than infernal one might say. This Friday, gusts at 13th Beach Golf Links reached up to 80 kilometres per hour. Believe it or not. It wasn’t just that at times the ball wouldn’t stay still on the greens, which of course happened, but the player himself thought at times he might fall over.
“It was a very complicated day. A madness. Throughout my round, I had an average of fifty kilometres per hour, but we had gusts of eighty, and it’s very difficult to play like that.” The consequences were clear. The Cantabrian admits that when analysing the shots, he added about fifty metres more in the calculations.
It can be described as madness: “Committing to the shots was very difficult, I hit several 7-irons from eighty-ninety metres. I even hit a 5-iron from a hundred metres, and of course, you think if the wind stops at that moment, I’ll hit it out of the wind. Well, and the other way around, a 160-metre par 3, I played a 60º.” Call it what you will, but what he had to play this Friday is almost another sport. Adapt or die. “Where I suffered the most was on the green, the ball was constantly trembling, it moved on seven holes, and I had to replace it, it was a constant tension and going out and getting back into the ball.” It’s strange that the day wasn’t suspended.
Despite the round of 78 strokes, Samuel doesn’t dwell on the negative: “I consider today a learning experience in every sense. These are things that don’t usually happen, and I’ve tried to make the most of it. I didn’t play badly, except for one bad drive, the rest of the bogeys came from three-putts, but for example, on the 18th hole, I had to wait more than three minutes to be able to putt. It’s difficult like that, even the shortest putt was very tense. At times, I thought I might fall over. Good feelings and tomorrow I’ll try to fight the round.”
