Amateur Manzoni soars in Italy

Italy’s amateur Giovanni Manzoni, 17, shot the best score of the day 64, -8 and leads by thre shots over a group of 4 pros, James Sharp, George Twyman, Gregory Molteni and Joon Kim. Manzoni, from Verona, just came back from the Scottish Boys Amateurs where he lost his first match. He took advantage of his knowledge of the course thanks to many Italian Junior amateur Championship played in Pieve Emmanuele.

He decided to come to play in Castello Tolcinasco Open at the very last minute to prepare his next amateur event, the Spanish Boys Amateur next week.

«  I played really solid of course but most of all, I putted well. » His coach, Paolo Pustetto was on the bag and he admitted his player was relax and he handled very well the course. « He could have been level par or +2 it was the same. He has been working with a mental coach for a year now and he had good results. »

Manzoni said that playing without any pressure was an help. Even if he still feels the competition, it is not the same as there is nothing at stake.

England’s Tom Shadbolt, 7th at Alps Tour ranking, is four shots back of the lead. He needs a better result than Italy’s Stefano Pitoni and France’s Fabien Marty to climb into the top 6 and then avoid the first stage of European Tour Q School.

The projected cut is -1.