Fabrizio

Zanotti

The 29-year-old Meronk had been trending toward his career-first title all season, which has included making 11 cuts in 13 starts with six top-10 finishes prior to his win. Three of those were top-five results, including a solo third at the Dutch Open and T-3 finishes at the Qatar Maters and Catalunya Championship. “It’s such a relief, to be honest,” said Meronk afterward. “I’ve been coming quite close a couple of times this year and to finally open the door is just a dream come true. That’s why we practice every day and I’m super happy.” New Zealand’s Ryan Fox finished runner-up for the third time this season, marking his seventh top-10 in 2022. Also of note Sunday at Mount Juliet Estate were three players who earned their spots at St. Andrews through the Open Qualifying Series: Scotland’s David Law, American John Catlin and Paraguay’s Fabrizio Zanotti finished T-4 at 15-under 273 to secure their tickets to St Andrews. “It’s a dream come true,” said Law, who will make his major debut at The Open. “I chose not to go to Final Qualifying last week so I could focus on this event and so now that getting a place has happened, I’m over the moon. … Playing in front of those crowds is going to be amazing. I’ve never played a major before so do it at St Andrews for the first time will be unbelievable.” Next week will mark Zanotti’s third appearance in The Open, while Catlin will make his second consecutive event start. Meronk, Fox, Law and Zanotti are in the field for this week’s Scottish Open.

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, the 38-year-old Zanotti finished T-15 after weekend rounds of 68-67, and told media at the time that he’d rather win an Olympic bronze medal than finish third at the Masters. “I’d prefer a bronze medal,” he said. “For Paraguay, it’s going to be much bigger than a third at the Masters. For Paraguay, for sure.” Zanotti, a two time winner on the European Tour, arrives in Japan off consecutive made cuts at the Irish Open (T-33) and the Scottish Open (T-65), and he’s 8-for-10 on the year. His best result this season came in January at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.

The Paraguayan looked comfortable for the first 36 holes but struggled a bit today. He landed just 8-of-14 fairways which was nearly two fewer than the field average. From there, he landed 12 greens in regulation and turned that into four birdies which were erased by a four-pack of bogeys. Today’s round was not a collapse by any means, he hovered around field average (+0.10 SG:Total) but it does take him from a share of first down to a share of seventh and he now finds himself three of the pacesetters heading into the finale. Zanotti has two career European Tour wins but nothing better than a T12 on the PGA TOUR (2017 WGC-Mexico Championship). He has a good chance to post a new personal-best tomorrow.

Playing on a sponsor’s event, the Paraguayan has traded 10 birdies with three bogeys to vault his name to the top. This is his second appearance at the Corales, finishing T50 during the 2018 edition. The 37-year-old spends his time on the European Tour but would welcome the chance to test his talents on the PGA TOUR, “Yeah, if I get the opportunity, I would love, I would love to play here. I think all the players like to play here. I play in Europe now, but if I got the opportunity to play here, will be great.” Playing his 16th PGA TOUR event this week, this will be his first time leading or co-leading after any round. Overseas, he’s been piling up steady results with three top 15s in his last six worldwide events. His last win on any stage came at the 2017 Maybank Championship

The Paraguayan is 76th in the rankings so needs a good effort this week to maintain his interest in the season. He’s had somewhat mixed experiences in this tournament, playing the two courses twice and having similar returns. At both he has failed – a T50 at Montgomerie Maxx Royal and a T56 at Carya. He has also thrived – a debut T19 at the Maxx and T8 two years ago at Carya. His form is a big concern. After a run of three finishes of T11 or better early in the campaign he has only twice made the top 40 in his last 14 appearances, the most recent, and highest, when T12 in the Open de Espana.

For a long time the Paraguayan didn’t have much game when he headed to Switzerland. He was just 3-for-8 after the 2015 tournament with not one top 40 finish. But that year something might have clicked even if he didn’t make the cut because, after he limped home in 75 on Thursday, he thrashed a second round 65. A year later he was T24, he followed that with T3 and then was T16 12 months ago. In those three years he has ranked top ten for Driving Accuracy and Greens in Regulation every time. He’s 13-for-15 this season, but other than T26 at Valderrama in July he hasn’t has a top 40 since March.

There are one or two unlikely pointers towards the Paraguayan this week. The first is that he finished T2 in this event’s first start in its most recent guise, at Woburn in 2015. The second is that he does have some links form – he was T2 in the 2012 Irish Open at this year’s Open venue Royal Portrush. He has also finished T4 on the Dutch links track of Kennemer. Then there is his form. He was T2 in the Oman Open, T11 in the Qatar Masters and then T7 at the Maybank Championship. However he has been T63 and T43 in the last two weeks and if he flew from Paraguay to Morocco to China to England in the last two and a half weeks he’s surely got a lot of jetlag flying round his body.

Each of the top five had a horror story during their week and ultimately Kitayama coped best, but Zanotti will undoubtedly toss and turn when replaying the last round in the next few nights. Holding a one-shot lead as he started the final round, he always rebounded from his mistakes, but will wonder how he made three of them. The first was a double bogey-6 at the fourth, followed by a red number at the fifth. He landed plumb in a bush with his drive at the ninth, found it, still made another double-bogey-6. Birdies at the 13th and 14th got him right back in the hunt whereupon he inexplicably four-putted the par-5 16th for a seven, missing one very short putt and one absolute tiddler. Incredibly, after almost finding water from the 18th tee he very nearly holed for an eagle-2 from 152-yards, but the birdie left him one short of forcing a play-off.

Sandstorms and high wind have caused this week’s European Tour event to be somewhat concentrated at the weekend. The Paraguayan returned early Sunday to complete his third lap. In all he made two bogeys (at the third and 11th), but atoned with a hatful of birdies. There were two at the sixth and seventh, another pair at 10 and 12, and then finally at 16 and 18. “I’m feeling good and sticking to my plan, going shot by shot,” he said. “The golf course will play very tough this afternoon so I need to be patient. I need to try and do my best, and there’s nothing else I can do. The wind wasn’t too difficult this morning when we started, but as we went through the round it started getting tougher.”

The Paraguayan negotiated the tricky conditions well on the third morning of the disrupted event. He opened with a birdie-3 and then around the turn added two more par breakers, both on par-3s (at 8 and 11). A bogey tripped him up at the 14th, but he got right back up again with a bounce back tick at the 15th. He was T7 in this event 12 months ago and his form in the Arabian Desert has been strong this calendar year. He was T32 in Abu Dhabi, T29 in Dubai and T24 in Saudi Arabia.