Jacobo Pastor Wins First International Tournament
Salamanca, (Spain), 2nd October 2020 –Jacobo Pastor from Spain held onto his lead of yesterday to emerge victor at the Alps de las Castillas with a total score of 203 (-13). A real achievement given the weather today as he explained:
“I’m happy, especially playing a solid round under these conditions. It was crazy. I don’t know how hard the wind was blowing but some gusts of like 80 kilometres an hour. At some point we took forever because the ball was moving on the green. Overall, it was a really, really tough day to be honest.”
Today’s scores reflect the reality of the challenges posed here at the Salamanca Golf & CC – Zarapicos with only six of the 58 players coming in under par for the day, giving a score board more like a links course in Scotland.
Jacobo Pastor teed off at -13 and at the end of the first nine was at par (36) after two birdies and two bogeys. A repeat performance for the back nine saw him finishing the round at par (72) for the day. Good enough to secure him his first victory in an international tournament.
His playing partners, Ryan Lumsden from Scotland and Tomas Bessa Guimaraes from Portugal, also finished at par, meaning that the top of the leaderboard today was the same as at end of play yesterday. Lumsden, however, gave the winner a run for his money. At the end of the front nine, the Scotsman had drawn level with Pastor after two birdies. Pastor then birdied the 10th to draw ahead but bogeyed the 12th which cancelled his lead as Lumsden had straight pars. Pastor describes the last few holes:
“The turnaround time was on the 13th hole when Ryan made a double bogey and I hit a really good shot on the par three and put it in for par. Then on the 15th I made a birdie and was three up. Par on 16th and 17th and so on the 18th I thought, okay this is it, you’ve got it”.
Indeed, even though Pastor bogeyed the 18th, his closest contender, Lumsden came home with pars and a total 205 (-11) to take second place, an excellent result for the young Scottish rookie who moves thirteen places up the Order of Merit to number twelve.
In third place Tomas Bessa Guimaraes from Portugal finished at 207 (-9) after four birdies and four pars.
Jacobo Pastor’s win sees him shoot up the OofM by 31 places to position him in the top ten at eighth. As he explains, the Alps Tour invitation for him to play at the Open de la Mirabelle d’Or helped him to have a concrete plan for the future:
“I became a member of the Alps Tour after France where I got an invite. I played pretty well and finished sixth. With the Corona virus, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to stay at home in 2021 so I decided to try and get an Alps Tour card for next year. So now I can actually have a decent schedule, I can focus on preparing a real season unlike this past season where I was playing tournaments on every tour to try and get a win.” Mission accomplished!
The top six places on the OofM remain unchanged with Jordi Garcia del Moral still leader after eight tournaments. The ninth and final tournament of the Alps Tour 2020 season is the Italy Alps Open from 28th to 30th October. After an extremely intensive playing schedule in September this gives the players time to recharge their batteries before heading to the Golf Nazionale, outside Rome.
The Alps de la Castillas has enjoyed the support of Federación de Golf de Castilla-Leon, Federación de Golf de Castilla-La Mancha, Salamanca Golf & CC – Zarapicos, Consejo Superior de Deportes, EDP Solar, Kyocera, Tag Heuer, Bodegas Barbadillo (official wine), Agua En Caja Mejor sostenible, pura y natural, and Jgolf.
Results Day 3: click here
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