Tournament: Mallorca Golf Open
DP World Tour Rankings: Tournament 40 of 43 events
Venue: Son Muntaner Golf Club, Palma, Mallorca, Spain
Prize Fund: €3,000,000
Hashtag: #MGO2022 #DPWT
Day One Report
Marcus Armitage carded a scorching 63 in the opening round of the Mallorca Golf Open to take a one-stroke lead at Son Muntaner Golf Course.
The Englishman is targeting a big finish on the Balaeric Island to force his way into contention for a spot in the season-ending DP World Tour Championship next month, and he currently sits in 68th position on the Rankings.
He got off to a hot start under the Spanish sun after teeing off on the tenth hole, registering back-to-back birdies on the 11th and 12th before picking up two more shots before the turn. He also enjoyed a four under par back nine thanks in part to a pair of closing birdies at the eighth and ninth holes, creating a new course record at Son Muntaner – which hosts the Tour for the first time this week.
That eight under total moved him one clear of Daan Huizing of the Netherlands, who signed for a seven under 64, while Dane Rasmus Højgaard, Lucas Nemecz of Austria and Spaniard Alejandro Cañizares were all a shot further back on six under.
Player quotes
Marcus Armitage: “It was great, it’s wicked when you do that. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, last week my second round 67 felt like a 63 or 62 to me, but this week’s a bit different and it’s nice to play like that and get off to a start like that.
“It’s a good little track, it’s got rough in certain places that you’ve got to avoid and the greens are receptive so it is a lot easier to what we’re used to. But you’ve still got to go out there and do it, there’s the tick rough that you have to navigate around.
“I’ve had some great starts to tournaments this year and just not finished them off. It’s not been a bad season but it’s not been a great one so you’ve got your mind on getting into the DP World Tour Championship because then you have a chance to finish an average season fantastically, so it is in the back of my mind so if I can get a top result this week, maybe even a win, I can have a week off and rest and get out to the final tournaments of the season.
“Success comes down to wins, but I think success can also come from within. If you give it everything you’ve got every week, then you look back on your career and say I’ve given it everything every week. I think you can pass that as success regardless of finishes. Ultimately everybody on the outside world judges you on what you’ve won and where you’ve finished, but I think if you can look back on your life and say I’ve given it my all in every department, that’s my idea of success.”
Daan Huizing: “My play was nice, but I’ve been playing well in recent weeks and just didn’t get much out of it. The way I started today wasn’t great, I hit it nicely but didn’t make the putts and then I holed out a wedge at 17 and got it going from there.
“I hit a few more close, holed a few nice putts and in the end of the day you have to hole the putts, luckily I was able to do that today.
“Tee to green it’s been good for a while but last week at Valderrama I played great tee to green and I missed the cut, so I just managed to hole the putts. You know you need to do that to make a score and it was nice to get it going.
“I know I definitely need to do a bit more to keep my card, for sure. But at the end of the day it all comes down to forgetting about all of that and focusing on the next shot and your task. Just boiling it down to that, and the better you can do that the better you’re going to play.
“I was able to do that well and that’s got to be the same story going forward, out your head down, try and play as well as you can and continue that good stuff.”
Rasmus Højgaard: “There was obviously pretty much no wind so the first nine holes were very nice, played well and had a few minor mistakes on the last nine holes, but my putter kept me in it today and I’m very happy with my round.
“There are a few difficult holes, but as long as you play them decently you can make a few birdies out there, especially with the wind not being up.
“If you keep it fairly straight from the tee you can set up a lot of chances because you have short irons or wedges in a lot of the time, but if you get a few of those lies in the rough, you’re going to bogey straight away. If you manage to keep those bogeys away you can shoot a decent score.”
Alejandro Cañizares: “I’m very proud of the day really. I started out with a birdie but then I hit it into the water on 11 and 12. But at this point of my year I don’t have the luxury of thinking about the misses and hitting it into the water.
“I kept going, early in the round I knew I could make some birdies so I kept going with my routine and my process and my plan for the day and I ended up with six under.
“It’s quite difficult not to think about the Rankings, it takes a lot of work for me. Something happened this week, I found out I didn’t enter into Portugal Masters, which was supposedly my last tournament of the season and I found out on Monday thanks to a journalist friend of mine.
“It was a terrible feeling, had everything planned with my family going over, so it’s extra difficult this week but that’s all you can do, try and do your process every time with every shot and count them up in the end.
“If you start thinking about the chatter in your head, you can’t get stuck with what your head tells you and that’s the goal – to get away from my thoughts, accept them and let them go and stick to every shot at a time.”
Lucas Nemecz: “I’m absolutely delighted, it was a very good round of golf, it had everything in there – some adventurous pars, easy birdies, good shots and good chips. It’s always good to get off to a good start to a tournament.
“The setup is really good, they did a good job to make this course tough. If there was no rough it would be a bombers course but the way it’s playing you can still hit it straight and that’s certainly something that favours me. It’s fun playing here.
“My expectation this year was to keep the card after coming from Challenge Tour last year, I had one year on the DP World Tour before and I played really bad so I knew it would be difficult.
“Last week’s top ten finish sealed the card for me so obviously it was a lot easier playing today and being a little more aggressive, not always thinking about cards and points and I think that was the difference. Now I hope to get another good finish.”
Round One scores:
63 M ARMITAGE (ENG),
64 D HUIZING (NED),
65 A CANIZARES (ESP), R H?JGAARD (DEN), L NEMECZ (AUT),
66 G GREEN (MAS), D FICHARDT (RSA), J JANEWATTANANOND (THA),
67 C SYME (SCO), J WINTHER (DEN), R GOUVEIA (POR), J LUITEN (NED), H LONG (GER), M LORENZO-VERA (FRA), M WARREN (SCO),
68 D WHITNELL (ENG), A COCKERILL (CAN), L BJERREGAARD (DEN), L GAGLI (ITA), R FOX (NZL), M SOUTHGATE (ENG), J WALTERS (RSA), S BROWN (ENG), E KOFSTAD (NOR), A FITZPATRICK (ENG), R RAMSAY (SCO), M KIEFFER (GER), N H?JGAARD (DEN), F ZANOTTI (PAR), J BRUN (FRA),
69 A GARCIA-HEREDIA (ESP), A SULLIVAN (ENG), R MANSELL (ENG), S SHARMA (IND), M SCHNEIDER (GER), D DRYSDALE (SCO), S JAMIESON (SCO), D VAN TONDER (RSA), B STONE (RSA), J VEERMAN (USA), E FERGUSON (SCO), A QUIROS (ESP), K APHIBARNRAT (THA), G BOURDY (FRA),
70 R PARATORE (ITA), P WARING (ENG), R SANTOS (POR), A WU (CHN), A OTAEGUI (ESP), S HEND (AUS), R ROUSSEL (FRA), M JORDAN (ENG), K BROBERG (SWE), P ANGLES (ESP), M KAWAMURA (JPN), J SENIOR (ENG), H LEON (CHI), C WOOD (ENG), S GARCIA RODRIGUEZ (ESP), J GUERRIER (FRA), G FORREST (SCO),
71 N LEMKE (SWE), D HOWELL (ENG), D VAN DRIEL (NED), D HORSEY (ENG), J SCRIVENER (AUS), Y PAUL (GER), M ANTCLIFF (AUS), N VON DELLINGSHAUSEN (GER), L DE JAGER (RSA), A CHESTERS (ENG), A PAVAN (ITA), W NIENABER (RSA), R MCGOWAN (ENG), T LEWIS (ENG), H PORTEOUS (RSA), R CABRERA BELLO (ESP), S HEISELE (GER), S SODERBERG (SWE), J SURI (USA), E VAN ROOYEN (RSA), C PIGEM (ESP), R MCEVOY (ENG), G PORTEOUS (ENG),
72 C HANNA (USA), B STOW (ENG), D GAVINS (ENG), N REGNER (AUT), R JACQUELIN (FRA), N KEARNEY (IRL), A HIDALGO (ESP), O FARR (WAL), A WILSON (ENG), N ELVIRA (ESP), G STORM (ENG), J STALTER (FRA),
73 E PEPPERELL (ENG), J CALDWELL (NIR), J HANSEN (DEN), J DONALDSON (WAL),
74 S TARRIO (ESP), C HOWIE (SCO), R KARLBERG (SWE), D COUPLAND (ENG), M FORD (ENG), O FISHER (ENG), R STERNE (RSA),
75 B HEBERT (FRA), R LANGASQUE (FRA), F LACROIX (FRA),
76 F LAPORTA (ITA), M SIEM (GER), J SINGH BRAR (ENG), J MANN (AM) (SCO), D DUPIN (FRA),
77 T LEE (KOR),
79 S GARCIA GROUT (ESP),
81 C SHARVIN (NIR), P SALVA MONTULET (AM) (ESP),
**
OUT V DUBUISSON (FRA),
