The Andalucía Costa del Sol Match Play 9 returns to the province of Málaga, this time to the ValleRomano Golf & Resort course, which takes over from La Cala Resort, which hosted the tournament last year.
The competition, which will be played from tomorrow until Sunday, was officially inaugurated yesterday with the presentation that took place in the facilities of Valle Romano Golf & Resort. Different authorities who make this tournament possible presided over the event.
Pablo Mansilla, president of the Andalusian Golf Federation, took the floor to highlight Andalusia as a ‘leading community in golf events’. In addition to the tournament being played this week, the community will host important events such as the Alps of Andalusia, Andalucia Valderrama Masters, the Costa del Sol Open de España Femenino, the Euro Pro Circuit Final at Desert Springs, a test of the National Professional Tour and two other tests of the Santander Tour.
Regarding this week’s tournament, Mansilla wanted to refer to the attractive format: “a particularly exciting tournament for the novelty of its format, which already liked a lot last year, both the public and the players.”
Arturo Bernal, General Manager of Costa del Sol Tourism, wanted to emphasize that “golf is a great sport, but for us it is also a great industry”. Bernal highlighted some data that corroborate his statement such as “the 1,410 million euros that golf generated last year on the Costa del Sol, creating 17,700 jobs”. “One out of every 5 courses in Spain is on the Costa del Sol,” said the general director who emphasized to banish falsehoods about this sport as the misuse of water resources. “Eighty percent of the fields are already irrigated with recycled water”. In Bernal’s opinion, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of golf “not only in terms of sport, but also in economic terms”. Golfers who travel to the Costa de Golf are “first-rate pre-registrants” as they give it an average score of 9.24 in surveys after their stays. ‘We have a great product and a great destination and golf contributes to making it even greater.”
María Monsalud, Territorial Delegate of Culture, Tourism and Sport in Málaga wanted to make clear in her speech “that the practice of sport contributes to the development and quality of life of a territory”.
And golf is a great example of this. Monsalud concluded by highlighting Estepona as “a tourist reference”. These words were thanked by José María García Urbano, mayor of Estepona, who was in charge of closing the event. The mayor was proud to host this week a “sporting event of the highest level”. And he wanted to highlight the capabilities of Estepona (with 12 golf courses) to host an event of these characteristics: “We are ready to receive all the players and when they finish their day, they can enjoy the gastronomy, landscapes… there are a million flowers planted throughout the city”. This tournament will leave its mark,” García Urbano emphasized.
A roster with 24 Spanish players
A total of 24 Spanish players will play from Thursday the Andalucía Costa del Sol Match Play 9, a Challenge Tour tournament. We will have the opportunity to see in action players of the level of Adri Arnaus, who in the sixth Challenge Tour tournament of his career, was already fighting for victory last week where he finished fourth in Portugal, or the player from Guadiaro, Mario Galiano, who finished fifth just a few hours ago in the Latin American PGA Tour tournament held in Costa Rica. More experienced players such as Eduardo de la Riva, Carlos del Moral, Álvaro Velasco, Alfredo García Heredia, Javi Colomo (currently competing in the Asian Tour); young promises such as Emilio Cuartero, Sebastián García Rodríguez, David Borda, Iván Cantero, Daniel Berna, Javier Sainz will also come to Valle Romano Golf & Resort.
The field of players will be joined by two invited amateur golfers, on the one hand the 20 year old Ángel Hidalgo from Marbella, the best Spaniard in the amateur world ranking occupying the 21st position, with numerous titles in his list of winners, highlighting last year’s European Championship; and Victor Pastor, a 23 year old from Cordoba who combines his golf career with psychology. Last April Pastor competed for the first time as a guest at the Open de España of the European Tour and did so with a spectacular card of 67 strokes on the first day that placed him third in the standings. He finished the tournament in twelfth place.
Within the Spanish team we will also have other important names such as Borja Virto, Jacobo Pastor, José Luis Adarraga or Santiago Tarrio (top-ten in the recent Challenge of Spain Izki), Juan Sarasti or Jose Ignacio Marín from Granada and Marcos Pastor from Cordoba.
It is worth mentioning the effort of two Andalusian players, Manuel Quirós and Alfonso Gutiérrez, who won their qualification through the qualifying round played in a single day with more than 40 players fighting for two places. Quirós with 66 strokes and Gutierrez with 67 won the two places in the competition also held at Valle Romano Golf & Resort.
As for international players, there will be golfers representing 26 countries at Valle Romano Golf & Resort. Other players of the level of Oliver Wilson, with a victory in the European Tour and who played the Ryder Cup in 2008 and other names that have also managed to succeed in the European Tour as Simon Dyson, Rhys Davies (became top 50 in the World) or the Irish player Gavin Moyniham, who won just two weeks ago the Golf Sixies, an event organized and promoted by the European Tour and last year finished second in this same tournament.
Different format
This is a competition with an innovative format where players will compete during two rounds in Stroke Play. After these first rounds, the best 64 will move on to a 9-hole Match Play elimination phase. This is the only tournament of the year in the Challenge Tour calendar that will be played in a Match-Play format.
Valle Romano Golf & Resort is a Cabell B Robinson design inaugurated in 2010 and built under the highest USGA quality standards. There are 18 holes par 71 prepared to host international level competitions.
With the main sponsorship of Turismo Andaluz, Turismo y Planificación Costa del Sol, Acosol, the Royal Spanish Golf Federation and the Royal Andalusian Golf Federation. The support of the Consejo Superior de Deportes and the collaboration of Reale, LaLiga4Sports, Ona Hotels (Official Hotel), Kyocera, Titleist, Holiday Golf, Ping, Callaway, Eulen Golf and the Estepona City Council. JGolf 18.0 is the organizing company.
Leave a Reply