Van Der Vaart gone with the wind

 Jurrian Van Der Vaart of the Netherlands during the second round. Credit: Tristan Jones

Very tough conditions today in Caesarea Golf Club. Dutch Jurrian Van Der Vaart shot one under to lead with -4 the inaugural Edmond de Rothschild Israel Masters. Italy’s Gregory Molteni and England’s Tom Shadbolt are one shot back.

Strong winds blew all day long and the second round story was totally different from the opening round. Despite shortening the course to allow for the weather conditions, players had many 3 and 4 irons to greens and sharp short game was needed to save pars.

Overnight co-leader,Verselin confirmed his recent good form and keep on hand on the trophy before teeing of the amen corner of the course and unfortunaly dropped 4 shots to let Netherlands’ Van Der Vaart leading on his own.
« I knew that anything under par would be great today and I was absolutely loving the course. I did not think about my ranking and what I need to be in the top. If you think about your order of merit, the putts get twice as long and the tee shots became extremely hard. The fortune is that I haven’t missed one tee shot in two days which is always crutial on a golf course this hard.

Playing with amateurs is longer than usual but in the other hand we are more relax on course as we are chating and giving them some advises. This week has been going well. I had a great partner from Paris, Philippe. He started playing better and better as he got more comfortable playing with us because they are obviously more nervous than we are. I am happy with the all concept, I think it is very good for the tournament, it is really good for raising money, getting more people involved and I hope more tournaments would be like this. »

Tom Shadbolt has a great opportunity to enter the final Alps Tour Top 5 to play on Challenge Tour next year. In case of a win, the 12 000 points will make him jump around third place.

« I struggled on the range this morning cause I don’t really like the wind of the left. At the end of my practice session I had quite a good feel. I hit a really good drive on the first and that was sort of the time for the day. I hit close there but missed and then hit it about 5 feet on the second and I missed that and I did not feel very confident on the greens until I hit a 6 foot putt on the third and I took my chances and I just played pretty smart. »

Smart will be the leit motiv tomorrow for those targetting a win, wind is forcasted as strong as today.
A very special day for one player whatever he scores, Ireland’s Bredan McCarroll will play his last round on Alps Tour as he decided to write a new chapter of his life.

From Israel
Agathe Séron