Joannes leads hope on home soil

Belgian Hugues Joannes kept narrow advantage after penultimate round. England’s rookie Steven Brown shown strong character by shooting 68 to came in contention one stroke back tied with France’s Sébastien Gros.

Former 2012 GB&I Walker Cup team player, Steven Brown finally found his place as promising young gun.

“It took me some time to find my pace on circuit. Obviously it is a big change from amateur world to pro world. The standard here is good. There are so many good players and they have to play somewhere ! Today, it was tough to have right distances because of gusts of wind. I had 10 pars to start and holed two good putts on 5th and 6th. I played solid and if the weather is about the same tomorrow, I should do the same to win.”

Hugues Joannes started with bogey-bogey-bogey and slept from -7 to -4. His name was surrounded by many others with same score and at this time none of observers could predict the ending.
“I was a bit nervous. I missed my 3 first fairways and I dropped 3 shots in a row. As I explained yesterday, the key here with the wind and the forest everywhere is to put the ball in play. My putting was al right and on back nine I holed birdies to come back on top of leaderboard.”

At recording area, France’s Sébastien Gros was surprised by signing for 73 to learn that he had only one stroke delay from Joannes. He struggled very much with his game and was happy to still be in the race.

” I had a poor day of golf. I did not manage to putt well. The first meter putt I holed to save par was on 7th. But the goal was to stay close to the lead and I did. Still 18 holes to go and I believe that on the kind of course everything can happen.”

From Braine-L’Alleud, near Waterloo
By Agathe Séron