Borja Etchart has won the tenth round of The Gecko Pro Tour that has been played this week at the Río Real Golf & Hotel in Marbella. The Biscayan golfer has won with a total score of 142 strokes, after a splendid final round of 68 under very difficult playing conditions due to the wind.
The tournament was decided in a heart-stopping final nine holes. Etchart got three birdies and two bogeys to end up lifting the trophy with one stroke ahead of Daniel Osorio and Anton Karlsson. Daniel Serón, protagonist and leader of the championship for a good part of this final round, gave up with a fateful series of four consecutive bogeys between holes 13 and 16 to finish in sixth place.
Etchart has arrived and kissed the saint. It was his first participation in the Gecko and his first victory. The happiness was more than justified. “It’s clear that I’m good at coming to a circuit again. It already happened to me in Catalonia, where I won the first time and now in the Gecko. I’m happy because I’ve noticed that the same good sensations I had throughout last season have been maintained. I wanted to try myself in competition because I haven’t played a tournament for almost three months, locked up in Madrid training”, explained the winner shortly before collecting the trophy.
Etchart, a 26-year-old from Biscay, is a prestigious winner for the Gecko. Last year he won the Challenge Tour card for 2015 after a masterful season on the Alps Tour, where he won and finished the year in the top five. The goal for the current course is to get a place in the top fifteen of the Challenge ranking to thus regain the European Tour card, a circuit of which he was already a member in 2011 through the School. “It’s the big goal of the year. I want to finish in the top fifteen to return to the European Tour. I don’t know if I would say I’m better than ever, but at least I remember that Borja Etchart who got the card in December 2010,” he says.
Borja played the Gecko for the first time and his impression was great. “The course has been very well prepared. The greens today were great and the organization is very good. They take great care of us and there is a detail that I loved: every two or three holes you have a blackboard with the results, something that is very useful and that you don’t find in the Alps or the Challenge Tour,” he says. The Basque player does not rule out playing the Gecko again to prepare his assault on the Challenge season, which will begin in Madeira in March.
The Gecko Pro Tour’s next event will be next week, February 11-13 at Guadalhorce Golf Club and Lauro Golf Club.
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