SIf the LIV Golf Andalucía was played in another setting, Anirban Lahiri would have secured the first success in the league promoted by Saudi Arabia. But in Valderrama, at the end of the afternoon, after the frustration of shooting into the lake on the right of the green of the 4th hole (par 5), manifested in the form of blasphemy, Jon Rahm, now calm, seven strokes from the lead like Sergio García, said emphatically: “It can be done.”
It was a happy Saturday for Lahiri, by far the best Indian golfer, a player with 18 professional victories, although all in Asia. He repeated, and is the only one, another round under par (66 strokes), a fabulous result on a course that this time did not need the wind to contain the scores. No one came out unscathed in the second match, everyone made some bogeys. Very fast greens and annoying rough were enough.
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The leader, with three birdies in the last five holes, with a great game around the green He was four strokes ahead of Danny Lee (72), a trailing chaser, and has opened a considerable advantage with the Spanish options, five with Eugenio López Chacarra and two more with the other two.
Three specific moments ruined the return to each of them. To Rahm it was that iron into the water. He aimed for the bunker on the left and the second shot ended up in the pond. “Sending two balls at the end of the two rounds – on Friday it was on the 17th, his penultimate hole – has cost me a high price,” lamented the one from Barrika, who until that moment, except with the putt, had played a golf of height. “I sign up to play every week from tee to green like this.” But what was supposed to be a round of four under par after three birdies in the last five holes ended in a lower score.
Anirban Lahiri plays a knock on the tee
Chacarra’s ball also ended up in a pond, as he took the lead halfway through the course. The man from Madrid knows he is strong and, despite starting with a double bogey because he couldn’t get the ball out of the bunker on the first hole, he made steady progress. With the confidence that the starting blows give and seeing that in his match, the main one, the leader Burmester had a fateful day with blows from one side and the other – in the 8th he sent her to the stage where Abraham Mateo would later perform – and neither did Lee It carbureted, it got bigger. On the 14th, after four birdies, he felt comfortable in command, but, above all, came the 17th.
Jon Rahm assessed his chances of a comeback on the last day of the LIV Golf Andalucía
On the tee shot the ball bounced to the left and fell down the slope onto unplayable grass.. He dropped with a penalty and the third shot ended in the water. He still took a good approach to make the bogey that makes his assault on his second victory in the LIV difficult, the only Spaniard to have achieved it.
Sergio García (73), who shared a match with Lahiri, was crushed by the approach on the 11th hole. He was saving the day with integrity, but on that par 5 from which he should have stolen a birdie, the third shot from the edge of the green came out a little hard and traveled across the entire area. He came out with a bogey that was a disaster. Valderrama is crazy like that, a scenario that “it’s best not to think about,” says Bryson DeChambeau, author of two pairs after visiting the water on the 4th and 17th and hitting it hard on the 14th from 90 meters. .
