Another birdie-day at Valdeluz, Lacroix and Catherine lead at -19
It was birdie-day again at Golf de Valdeluz on the second round of Alps de Las Castillas, the first of the four Alps Tour event hosted in Spain in 2019, a real fireworks show where the best were two young French rookies : Frederic Lacroix, 23, and Edgar Catherine, 20, are sitting on top of the leaderboard at -19 having added respectively a 62 and a 63 to yesterday’s scores, and have a 2-strokes advantage over favourite Spaniard Sebastian Garcia Rodriguez (co-leader in the first round) at -17 and three strokes on Frenchman Xavier Poncelet (co-leader yesterday, too) and Dutch Lars Van Meijel at -16.
« I’ve played well since the beginning – said Lacroix, who won the first tournament he played as a pro in Egypt last February, the Ein Bay Open – on hole 10 I had a birdie holing from 12 metres, and this gave me the right boost for the day; most of the remanining birdies – 8 in total – happened on short par 5s where I could reach the green in two, or par 4s where I was nearly hitting the green with the driver, as it was the case on hole 8 where I actually had an eagle-2 holing from 7 metres. My new driver was the key, I had been struggling lately with my old club so I’ve worked with Callaway in order to find something more suitable for my game and we finally found a solution with a new one that I’m using this week, and it works ! I’m much more relaxed from the tee, I can hit the shots the way I want to, and this makes golf easier for me! And this is the reason why I was confident about a low score, which actually came true».
« My game was a bit less solid than yesterday – said Catherine, who was already co-leading the first round, tied with three other players – but my putting helped me to score well. It was a bit more windy today, the course played slightly more difficult, but I was able to keep my focus and it went quite well in the end ». On his card, 2 eagles, 6 birdies and one bogey.
Four players shot a 62 (-10) today, apart from Lacroix also Austrian Felix Schulz, Frenchman Julien Foret and Spaniard Angel Hidalgo Portillo, but best score of the day was returned by Spaniard Javier Gallegos Marsal, 61 (-11), who had one eagle, 10 birdies and one single bogey and is now tied 6th at -15.
As expected, the cut fell very low, at 134 (-10), leaving 44 players (41 pros and 3 amateurs) to contend on the final day and share the 48,000 euros of the prize money.
Alps de las Castillas, promoted by JGolf 18.0, is possible thanks to the Royal Spanish Golf Federation, Castilla La Mancha Federation, Castilla y León Federation, La Liga 4Sports, the Consejo Superior de Deportes, and the collaboration of Kyocera, Bodegas Barbadillo (official wine), Agropecuaria Fraile, Asendia, Volvo Auto Elia, Wilson Staff, IT Regalos.
2nd round results: click here
3rd round draw : click here
Stay tuned! www.wp-alpstour.ocs-sport.com and the app « Alps Tour Golf » (on App Store for iOS devices and Play Store for Android) will keep you updated on every news about Alps Tour.
Instagram @alpstourgolf
Facebook @Alpstourgolf Satellite
Twitter @AlpsTourGolf
