4th March 2015 | Alps Tour Golf
Cooley Pharaoh in Cairo
Andrew Cooley (c) Agathe Séron
England’s Andrew Cooley is really the Alps Tour Pharaoh. He won his fourth title in Egypt, the Dreamland Pyramids Open thanks to final 67. He already won twice in 2013 and once last year.
He teed off one shot behind the overnight leaders Marguery and De Stefani. His start was the best he could have imagined as he birdied the first three holes.
“Well, I did not play very well last week but I had some good tips of Tom Sherreard and he really helped me out to get some good feelings on the range this morning and it kind of pay off.
Starting the round with three birdies did not mean it was my day but I knew I had to keep going, 3 wasn’t to be enough but that was the start I needed.”
He dug his advantage with brilliant and kind of lucky shot. On the 9th, after amazing drive, the few spectators cheered loudly an eagle two. He went -10 when closest competitor Raphaël Marguery was -6.
“I hit a good drive but it did not finish in a easy spot, I thought it was short of the bunker but I hit it hard enough to get over. It is your day when that kind of thing happens and I holed about 40 yards for eagle two, pretty fortunate.”
Despite his victories, Cooley did not manage to get his card to play on Challenge Tour. He confessed his game has to be more regular.
“Last year I had a wrist injury when we had sort of 5 or 6 tournaments close together, that wasn’t ideal. I need to be more consistent really. I don’t really have a consistent game, it is all or nothing but if I could just try get that consistency through the year hopefully pick up another win if I do play well.”
France’s Matthieu Pavon fired the best score of the day 66 to finish at second place.
“I am happy because it has been 3 weeks that I was playing well but my putting was very poor. But on the 10th hole, I holed about 8 meters and it was like a discloser and a relief. Thereafter, I holed some other putts and I had a nice round.”
Pavon leads the Alps Order of Merit after this winter series in Egypt. His compatriot Alexandre Widemann is second, England’s Andrew Cooley and Tom Shadbolt are respectively third and fourth and Frenchman Léo Lespinasse is a fifth place.
From Cairo
Agathe Séron
