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South Africa's Christiaan Bezuidenhout will take a four-shot lead into the third round of the Andalucia Masters, but tournament host Sergio Garcia remains in contention for a fourth straight victory.
Bezuidenhout took advantage of the calmer morning conditions to add a 68 to his opening 66 to finish eight under par, with Garcia's 72 leaving him on four under alongside fellow Spaniards Alvaro Quiros and Adri Arnaus and Welshman Bradley Dredge.
“Most of all I just kept it in play nicely, which is the key thing here,” Bezuidenhout said. “I’m driving it pretty well, so I was hitting quite a lot of fairways.
“A course like this you can score from the fairways and if you don’t hit the fairways you’re going to struggle. I prefer the tougher conditions, you’ve just got to face it and I’m just going to do the same over the weekend.”
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Garcia first won the Andalucia Masters in 2011 before the tournament dropped off the European Tour schedule for five years, and his victories in 2017 and 2018 mean the 39-year-old has recorded an incredible 13 top-10 finishes in 14 appearances at Valderrama.
The former Masters champion carded three birdies and four bogeys in his 72 and said: “I wouldn’t say it was a bad round, it was very difficult this afternoon.
“The greens were very firm, it got quite windy. I just didn’t really make any putts, but I felt like I played well under the conditions and 72 was the most I could shoot.”
World number 11 Jon Rahm also shot 72 to lie seven shots off the lead and was frustrated with his performance.
“It’s just a lot of stupid mistakes, as simple as that. It’s just annoying,” Rahm said. “It’s not like I’m playing bad and it was not that difficult this morning, I’m just leaving shots out there when I shouldn’t and it’s costing me getting a real low round going.”
All three Irish golfers missed the cut, with Michael Hoey’s second round completely unravelling on the ninth hole.
After opening with eight straight pars, he ran up an 11 on the 441-yard par-four to slip out to 10 over. Hoey recovered to make a birdie on the 10th but the damage was done as he went on to sign for a seven-over 78 to finish on 10 over.
Paul Dunne was a shot better off on nine under after a second round that included two double bogeys.
Last out on the 10th tee, Gavin Moynihan struggled to a 12-over 83 to finish on 13 over, his card including two birdies, three pars, 11 bogeys and a triple-bogey eight on the par-five 17th.
VALDERRAMA LEADERBOARD
British and Irish unless stated, par 71, (a) denotes amateur
134 Christiaan Bezuidenhout (Rsa) 66 68
138 Adri Arnaus (Esp) 68 70, Sergio Garcia (Esp) 66 72, Bradley Dredge 67 71, Alvaro Quiros (Esp) 70 68
139 Victor Perez (Fra) 65 74, Gaganjeet Bhullar (Ind) 68 71, Mikko Korhonen (Fin) 70 69, George Coetzee (Rsa) 70 69, Scott Jamieson 68 71
140 Mike Lorenzo-Vera (Fra) 68 72, Matthieu Pavon (Fra) 67 73, Espen Kofstad (Nor) 70 70, Nicolas Colsaerts (Bel) 73 67, Chris Paisley 69 71, Pablo Larrazabal (Esp) 68 72, Hideto Tanihara (Jpn) 70 70, Julian Suri (USA) 67 73, Fabrizio Zanotti (Pry) 69 71, Justin Walters (Rsa) 70 70, Masahiro Kawamura (Jpn) 67 73, Gavin Green (Mal) 66 74
141 Soren Kjeldsen (Den) 71 70, Jon Rahm (Esp) 69 72, Samuel Del Val (Esp) 71 70
142 David Law 70 72, Steven Brown 70 72, Anton Karlsson (Swe) 66 76, Hugo Leon (USA) 73 69, Oliver Wilson 69 73, David Horsey 69 73, Kim Koivu (Fin) 72 70, Victor Dubuisson (Fra) 69 73, Andy Sullivan 71 71, Jeunghun Wang (Kor) 71 71, Andres Romero (Arg) 70 72, Eduardo Ger Lao Riva (Esp) 71 71, David Lipsky (USA) 70 72, Thomas Detry (Bel) 74 68, Min Woo Lee (Aus) 75 67
143 Sihwan Kim (Kor) 66 77, Andrew Johnston 70 73, Filippo Bergamaschi (Ita) 69 74, Niklas Lemke (Swe) 68 75, Joost Luiten (Ned) 68 75, Jack Singh Brar 72 71, Thongchai Jaidee (Tha) 73 70, Paul Peterson (USA) 72 71, Adrien Saddier (Fra) 73 70, Jason Scrivener (Aus) 71 72, Bernd Ritthammer (Ger) 71 72, Nino Bertasio (Ita) 73 70, Richard Sterne (Rsa) 72 71, Edoardo Molinari (Ita) 71 72
144 Joakim Lagergren (Swe) 70 74, Jorge Campillo (Esp) 73 71, Grant Forrest 72 72, Daniel Gavins 70 74, Dean Burmester (Rsa) 71 73, Tapio Pulkkanen (Fin) 70 74, Hyo-won Park (Kor) 73 71, Thomas Bjorn (Den) 71 73, Alejandro Canizares (Esp) 71 73, Wade Ormsby (Aus) 73 71, Sean Crocker (USA) 72 72, Christofer Blomstrand (Swe) 75 69, Shiv Kapur (Ind) 74 70, Kristoffer Reitan (Nor) 73 71, Ashley Chesters 71 73, Stuart Manley 72 72, Lorenzo Gagli (Ita) 71 73
MISSED CUT
145 Ricardo Gouveia (Por) 75 70, Aaron Rai 72 73, Kristian Krogh Johannessen (Nor) 72 73, Robert Karlsson (Swe) 73 72, Max Schmitt (Ger) 73 72, Adrian Otaegui (Esp) 73 72, Richie Ramsay 71 74, Matthew Nixon 70 75, David Howell 70 75, Haydn Porteous (Rsa) 68 77, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano (Esp) 74 71, Matthew Southgate 70 75, Jin-ho Choi (Kor) 70 75, Lee Slattery 69 76, Jake McLeod (Aus) 75 70, Matthew Fitzpatrick 74 71
146 Ben Evans 73 73, Thomas Aiken (Rsa) 74 72, Javier Colomo (Esp) 72 74, Pep Angles (Esp) 74 72, Joachim B Hansen (Den) 68 78, Adam Bland (Aus) 73 73, Jeff Winther (Den) 76 70, Andrea Pavan (Ita) 73 73, (a) Eugenio Lopez-Chacarra (Esp) 71 75, Santiago Tarrio Ben (Esp) 70 76, Johannes Veerman (USA) 72 74, John Catlin (USA) 72 74
147 SSP Chawrasia (Ind) 74 73, Richard McEvoy 68 79, Nick Cullen (Aus) 70 77, Rikard Karlberg (Swe) 74 73, Oliver Fisher 70 77, Deyen Lawson (Aus) 71 76, Scott Hend (Aus) 74 73, Robert Rock 72 75, Marc Warren 75 72, Stephen Gallacher 77 70, Darius Van Driel (Ned) 73 74, Yusaku Miyazato (Jpn) 73 74
148 Maximilian Kieffer (Ger) 73 75, Kalle Samooja (Fin) 72 76, Clement Sordet (Fra) 71 77, Callum Shinkwin 76 72, Alfredo Garcia-Heredia (Esp) 75 73, Matthias Schwab (Aut) 75 73, Jose-Maria Olazabal (Esp) 71 77, Liam Johnston 73 75, Romain Wattel (Fra) 70 78, Pedro Figueiredo (Por) 74 74, Benjamin Hebert (Fra) 76 72, Dimitrios Papadatos (Aus) 76 72
149 Ashun Wu (Chn) 72 77, Jack Senior 74 75, Zander Lombard (Rsa) 74 75, Pedro Oriol (Esp) 74 75, Jens Dantorp (Swe) 71 78, Renato Paratore (Ita) 73 76
150 Marcus Kinhult (Swe) 75 75, Ross Fisher 70 80, Paul Waring 72 78, Guido Migliozzi (Esp) 78 72, Darren Fichardt (Rsa) 75 75, David Drysdale 77 73, Tom Murray 74 76, Max Orrin 77 73
151 Paul Dunne 75 76, David Borda (Esp) 71 80, Pelle Edberg (Swe) 79 72, Sam Brazel (Aus) 74 77, Luis Gagne (Crc) 76 75, James Morrison 77 74, Raphael Jacquelin (Fra) 71 80
152 Jamie Donaldson 72 80, Michael Hoey 74 78
153 Louis De Jager (Rsa) 75 78, Joel Girrbach (Swi) 75 78
154 Nacho Elvira (Esp) 74 80
155 Gavin Moynihan 72 83, Kurt Kitayama (USA) 79 76, (a) Alejandro Del Rey (Esp) 74 81
156 Ivan Cantero Gutierrez (Esp) 78 78, Shubhankar Sharma (Ind) 79 77
157 Per Langfors (Swe) 74 83
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