Alejandro

Canizares

Playing out of Category 20 this season, starts are tough to come by for the veteran, Canizares. That makes today’s round even more special. Only 11 golfers in the field entire field turned in a red number today so his 6-under 64 really lapped the field. This Sunday rally will jump him to 21st in the early-season DP World Tour Rankings and also earns him a spot at the 151st Open via The Open Qualifying Series. The two others to punch their ticket today included Min Woo Lee and Haydn Barron.

All three of these golfers opened with rounds of -5 points or worse which had them all sniffing the bottom of the leaderboard. This is the second straight mid-tourney WD for Coetzee who called it quits during last week’s Barbasol Championship, as well. Canizares also played last week and missed the cut while Siem settled for a T81 finish. All three of these golfers rank 99th or lower on the DP World Tour Rankings and didn’t get any help from their trip to the States.

The 38-year-old Spaniard finished at 18-under 270 at Bernardus Golf in Cromvoirt, Netherlands, carding four rounds in the 60s including a final-round 68 that ended with an unfortunate double bogey on his 72nd hole that dropped him five shots behind winner Kristoffer Broberg and two shots back of runner-up Matthias Schmid. It marked his best finish in 14 starts at the event, in which he’s made 10 cuts but missed the weekend in his last two (2018, ’19). Canizares made 30 birdies on the week, notably birdying Nos. 3 and 12 in all four rounds. On the season, he’s made 12 cuts in 19 starts with another third-place finish at ISPS Handa World Invitational in July and a T-7 at the Austrian Open in April. The two-time European Tour winner last visited the winner’s circle at the 2014 Trophee Hassan II. He’ll tee it up again after the Ryder Cup at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, where he’s 11-for-13 with a best finish of T-24 in 2013.

The 38-year-old Canizares is a two-time European Tour winner, but he hasn’t visited the winner’s circle since the 2014 Trophee Hassan II and hasn’t finished in the top three since the Nedbank Golf Challenge in 2016. He carded four straight sub-par rounds last week at Massereene GC and Galgorm Castle, where he finished at 11-under 269, two strokes behind winner Daniel Gavins of England. Key to the turnaround was his driving accuracy for the week, which ranked ninth in the field, and putting average, which ranked fifth. On the season, the former 2003 NCAA champion from Arizona State has made nine cuts in 15 starts and has one other top 10, a T-7 at the Austrian Golf Open in April. He missed the cut in the 2020 Hero Open.

The World No. 781 played the easier Creek Course today and immediately set about cashing in with birdies at four of his five five holes (10, 12, 13 and 14). He responded to a lone bogey at 16 with birdie at 17 before adding red numbers at 17, 1 and 3. The wind picked up late but the Spaniard kicked on again with a trio of closing par breakers at 7, 8 and 9. “It was a great round,” he said. “I putted really well, I hit the ball well as well, I don’t think I missed many greens. It was one of those days where you saw the hole pretty big. I didn’t have many expectations because it’s a long way from home so you don’t know how you’re going to feel but I was hitting the ball well, I’m working on the right things.” This is his sixth R1 lead on the European Tour. The second also came in Australia when he finished third at the Perth International while he converted from this position in the 2014 Trophee Hassan II, one of his two European Tour victories.

The Spaniard has never played at the RACV Royal Pines Resort before and has actually made just four starts down under, with rather a split in his results. He was T9 in the JBWere Masters on the Melbourne sandbelt way back in 2009 then T3 in the 2012 Perth International. In more recent times he has struggled. He missed the cut at both the 2016 Perth International and 2018 World Super 6 Perth. Having retrieved his card at Q School he opened the 2020 season with a 67 for T5 in the Alfred Dunhill Championship, but couldn’t equal, nevermind break, par thereafter and slipped to T24 before missing the cut in Mauritius.

In October, the Spaniard finished T17 at his home Open de Espana followed by T40 at the Open de France although it wasn’t enough to secure his card. But he breezed through Q School for the second year running (won it last year; third this time) and opened his 2020 campaign with a tied 25th in last week’s Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa. We have no event or course form but he’s a straight hitter and this short track could be a good one for him.

The Spaniard won his card back at Q-School last week and immediately hit the ground running today. It was pleasant progress on his front nine as Canizares birdied 2, 4 and 8 whilst adding six pars to turn in 32. But then the fun and games began. The 36-year-old dropped shots at 10 and 11 but followed those back-to-back squares with a hat-trick of bogeys at 12, 13 and 14. He gave another stroke back at 16 but signed off in style with eagle-3 at the closing hole to match his low round at Leopard Creek (set last year in R2 when T26).

In one sense the Spaniard is 121st in the Race to Dubai and he let another good chance slip last week as he finished T9 at the Made in Denmark. Moreover he has now not finished top five on the European Tour (strokeplay) since he was T4 in the Nedbank Challenge at the end of 2016. But that effort last week was also a first top ten since that week two and a half years ago and it was the third time in five starts he has threatened. He was T4 after 18 holes in Oman but then got blown away with an 83. Two starts later he started with a 67 in Morocco but followed it with 76-78-74 to slip down the scoring. In Denmark he also slipped backwards all week but less destructively so. The signs are that he is improving.

The Spaniard is just one swing back of the pace-setter Matthias Schwab after a strong front nine (his second) boosted his position on the leaderboard. He had opened the day with six pars, but ended the back nine with a bogey-birdie-bogey stretch. His response was resourceful. He immediately got himself level-par with more red at the first and then he added more at the sixth and eighth whilst keeping any blue from the journey home. He is 175th in the Race to Dubai and needs a good week. He is 5-for-8 this season but lacks a top 20 finish and he hasn’t tasted a stroke play top ten since the Nedbank Challenge of late 2016.