WIND CAUSES CARNAGE AT OMEGA EUROPEAN MASTERS
Players have been battling blustery conditions in the third round of the DP World Tour’s Omega European Masters, and it is predictably causing havoc.
For example, driving distances at the 14th at Switzerland's Crans-Sur-Sierre Golf Club have been particularly eye-catching, with local star Cedric Gugler, who is one of the chasing pack behind leader Matt Wallace, among those eating into the 547-yard par 5 at the high altitude course with considerable ease. Gugler hit his tee shot an incredible 476 yards on the way to a birdie.
However, while some have benefited from the conditions, for others, the 35mph gusts have not been as helpful.
For example, Nicolai von Dellingshausen had been going along nicely enough with a creditable one-over on his front nine on a day where low scores were generally proving hard to come by.
The German approached the 12th hole still within sight of the leader, standing six behind the Englishman. After his second shot found the back of the green, he faced a daunting 54-foot putt for birdie, but that’s where things began to unravel.
Any hopes he had of immediately narrowing the gap at the top of the leaderboard were comprehensively thwarted when, instead of his putt heading towards the hole, the ball took a severe misturn into the lake beside the green.
He didn’t have much luck with his fifth shot either, finishing 37 feet from the hole, and he could only get to one-and-a-half feet with his bogey attempt before finishing a double-bogey to slip further behind the lead.
If that left Von Dellingshausen deflated, he could at least take consolation from the fact that he wasn’t the only one struggling at the hole. His playing partner Eddie Pepperell also came a cropper thanks to the lake when he found the water not once but twice.
The Englishman’s second shot veered left of the green to land in the water, but to his dismay, his very next shot traveled only four yards before again landing in the lake before he eventually walked away with a quadruple-bogey eight.
Elsewhere, another Englishman, Alex Fitzpatrick, began the day in contention for his maiden DP World Tour win, but he got off to the worst possible start when, on the opening hole, he three-putted from inside six feet to give him a dispiriting double-bogey.
Despite the misfortunes of the three players, they each remain in reasonable positions on the leaderboard, with Fitzpatrick six off the lead, Von Dellinghausen seven off the pace after he recovered with successive birdies, and Pepperell tied for 30th heading into the final round.
Afterwards, Wallace tried to make sense of the conditions, saying: "Where do I start? Brutal, really hard. Felt I hit the ball just as good, in the right areas - they were the wrong areas by the looks of it.
"The other day I was saying it was cold and windy, but that was crazy, that was mental. The greens were fantastic but just really fast as well. Man, that was tough, Jamie [Lang, his caddie] and I are very tired now."
Gugler is six off the lead with one round to play, and he said: "It was a fight, it was tough. I've seen snow, I've seen a lot of rain, I've seen a load of low temperatures but I've never seen wind like that before. It was very, very tough."
Another player who had been in contention before a costly ruling penalty on the 12th is Jordan Smith. He suggested the DP World Tour could have taken the conditions into account when setting up the course, particularly with regard to pin positions.
He wrote on X: "A day to forget but a day for the @DPWorldTour refs to forget. The quickest these greens have ever been by far but they still decide to use the same pins as old plus with high winds today. Even with the perfect conditions yesterday a few of the pins were ridiculous."
He also insisted that the unexpectedly harsh conditions didn't offer an excuse as there was still time to change things before the start of play. He added: "Plus the forecast was out at 6am with the first tee time being 7:30/45 so had time to change them!"