“If you told me on Wednesday I’d be in the final group with a two-shot lead over Jon Rahm, I’d have told you you’re crazy, I can’t believe it”. Angel Hidalgo is on cloud nine at this ACCIONA Open de España presented by Madrid, a tournament where he is having the time of his life. The Andalusian will not want to wake up from a dream in which the most difficult part is just round the corner; putting the cherry on the cake.
The leader from day one, Hidalgo looked somewhat nervous on Saturday. He is undoubtedly confident in his game, but today he lacked some of the brilliance he displayed in previous rounds: “I’m very happy with today’s round, it wasn’t easy because I’d never been in a situation of this magnitude, but I think I handled it as well as possible and I can’t wait for tomorrow to come now”.
The test Hidalgo is facing is getting tougher every day, especially for a player who has still never won in the elite, but Sunday is the final exam and he will be sharing the last group with Jon Rahm and David Puig. It is a script Hollywood might pay for:
“I don’t know if I’m ready for what’s coming tomorrow, that’s something I’ll find out at the end of the round, but I’m sure having so many fans with our group, cheering all three of us on, will be spectacular. Today, every time I hit a bad shot, all I heard was encouragement, and I’m so grateful for that. The least I can do for them is give my all”.
We are talking about a player who, despite having no experience of the winners’ circle, can at least say that he has stared down pressure and defeated it: “Neither today nor tomorrow will be the most pressure I’ve played under, it will still be the Sunday at Valderrama, because here I’m fighting for victory, which is still amazing, but that day I was fighting for my card the next year. At the time, I was an Alps player, so I was playing for my life. Of course there will be nerves tomorrow, but they’ll be different”.
On day three, the key for Hidalgo holding onto his lead was that he managed to bounce back from his mistakes. He bogeyed the 2nd and 12th holes but immediately got the shot back at the next opportunity: “That was really important because, in the end, it takes you back to the same situation but having played two more holes, and especially because, in today’s case, they were two really good putts on 3 and 13 and that makes you excited to get the par 5s. But it also helped me forget about the two bad shots that could have affected me more, considering that I was blocking a lot of shots and those went a long way right”.
Apart from some outstanding golf, Hidalgo has made for great quote this week, such as his reference to “90 minutes in the Bernabeu is a long time”, or his fear of hitting an air shot in a hypothetical final group on Sunday with Jon Rahm which is now a reality. “If only it were added time, but we’ve only played 60 minutes and the Bernabeu is really buzzing, so we’ve got a long way to go. As for the 1st tee tomorrow, one thing I’m sure of is that I’m going to tee the ball up higher than normal to avoid any possible scares. It’s something I’ve dreamt about since I was little, and luckily it’s going to happen tomorrow, which means we’re doing things well and we deserve it”.
Finally, the leader of the ACCIONA Open de España dared talk about scores for tomorrow’s round: “I’m sure that if I shoot 60 tomorrow, I’ll take it, but I’d also take a 68 now. It also depends a lot on whether Jon starts with four straight birdies, that changes things. But it’ll be between -15 and -20. I have to go about my game, and although it’s inevitable that I’ll watch the leaderboard, I know I have to play well because a lot of people have a chance of winning tomorrow, I would say including those on -6. But of course, Jon and David are players who have shot 61 or 62 before on a Sunday to win, so perhaps they are the ones to watch”.
