Dan Bradbury (-10) provided one of the highlights of round 3, or even of the week. The Wakefield-born player fired the first hole-in-one of this year’s event. It came on hole 3 at Madrid’s Club de Campo, which today measured 227 yards. As if that were not enough, Bradbury went on to cover the first nine holes in 29 shots. A stunning effort. Unfortunately, his score will not go down in the course’s record books because the ‘pick and place’ rule was in force. However, his front nine today will not be forgotten any time soon.
The Englishman started his round at 09:05 in the fourth match of the day with Chase Hanna and Jorge Campillo. All three began the day on -2, which was on the cut line. It was 09:32 in the morning when Dan stepped onto the third tee having just birdied the previous hole. Bradbury wanted to hit a five iron, but on a damp morning in Madrid, his caddie made him hit a four. He checked for wind, of which there was barely a whiff, and teed up his ball. Two practice swings, then he hit a slight fade, the ball bounced, rolled 6 feet and dropped into the hole. A hole-in-one at the ACCIONA Open de España presented by Madrid. The story does not finish there either. Dan Bradbury now has three hole-in-ones to his name… THIS SEASON; in South Africa, Abu Dhabi, and now Madrid. Incredible. After his round, he joked that he will “try to break the record of Miguel Ángel Jiménez”, who also once had three aces in a season. The Englishman has tomorrow’s round plus four tournaments left to beat the Spaniard.
This season’s champion in Joburg was looking for a result that would allow him to climb the leaderboard, and his eagle on the 3rd, plus five birdies on 2, 4, 5, 7 and 9 took him to seven under par for his round after just nine holes. The 24-year-old was simply unstoppable. However, he did take his foot off the gas a little on the back nine where, after, he managed to offset a mistake on the 12th with a birdie on the 16th before signing off with another on the 18th.
Dan Bradbury will not forget the morning of the 14th October any time soon, but the week could become even more memorable. The Englishman is currently on ten under par after round three (T11) and is in with a shout for his second DP World Tour title in Madrid.
