Fourth place at the Challenge de España a week ago was clearly Jeremy Freiburghaus' best result so far. A few days before his 26th birthday, his first victory on the Challenge Tour was close at hand. With a total of 11 under par, the man from Graubünden was four shots ahead of two Englishmen after three rounds. Freiburghaus had started the tournament at the Newmachar Golf Club in Aberdeenshire with a 67. With considerably more wind, a par round of 71 strokes followed in the second round. In round three, Freiburghaus then played very well. Seven birdies and eleven pars resulted in the best score of the whole tournament.

In the final round, things did not go according to plan for Freiburghaus. Among other things, he had to record the first double bogey of the tournament. After the second stroke loss on hole 15, the player from the Domat Ems Golf Club fell behind with two over par. With the fourth birdie on hole 16 and the first on the 18th, Freiburghaus fought his way back into the play-off with the second par round. There he met the great playing Spaniard Javier Sainz, who also reached 11 under par with his second 65. In the play-off, both professionals started with a par, then Sainz managed a decisive birdie for his first Tour victory.

Fifth place in the annual ranking

For Freiburghaus, the ungrateful second place remained, after all almost 30,000 euros in prize money and above all the big jump in the annual ranking. The clearly best Swiss improved from 20th to 5th place. Benjamin Rusch also made a clear leap forward. He improved from 31st to 20th place in the "Road to Mallorca". The Thurgau native also started with 68 strokes, then fell back a little with the par round. In the third round, the 32-year-old started with two birdies, but also had to write two double bogeys on the scorecard in the course of the round. In the end, Rusch fell out of the top-20 with a card of 72 before the decider, where Rusch then played the clear best result of the day of 65 strokes or six under par. Thanks to the third-best result in the final round, it was enough for a shared fifth place. After seventh place in Spain, this is already the second top place for the man from eastern Switzerland.

Marco Iten was the third Swiss to qualify for the cut after two rounds. This with a total of six under par on the promising third place. After that, the man from Zurich was not able to make the most of his good starting position, and with two rounds of 73, Iten had to settle for 23rd place in the end.

Stefan Waldvogel

Article retrieved from www.swissgolf.ch