Carlos Rodiles has become the fourth champion of the Gecko Tour season. The player from Malaga has won convincingly in the Marbella Club Golf Resort course with a cumulative score of 199 strokes in three rounds.
Sensational performance of the player from Malaga, who left the tournament ready for sentence with two fabulous rounds of 64 strokes on Tuesday and Wednesday. Such was his demonstration of power that he went out to play the final round with eleven strokes ahead of the second position. A walk in the clouds. The dream situation for any professional, although the reality is that such large advantages are not easy to manage mentally. “It has been a complicated day because everyone is already giving you as the winner and you have nothing to gain and everything to lose. I played cautiously, making sure, it wasn’t a spectacular goal, but it was enough. It’s been a long time since I set myself expectations when I play because there have been many times when I arrived well and didn’t pass the cut and the other way around, so I live in the present and face each day to the maximum to do my best,” he said.
Rodiles finished off his victory with a final round of 71 strokes. Not even the wonderful madness of the Norwegian player Eirik Tage Johansen, with a superlative round of golf of 61 strokes on the last day, the best of the week, managed to disturb the winner. Finally, there were six strokes of advantage between the Andalusian golfer and the Nordic. In any case, Johansen’s round deserves a special mention, as he signed no less than nine birdies and an eagle. Extraordinary.
In third position, he finished with nine under par, two behind Johansen, the Chilean Mark Tullo, with European Tour pedigree. It is also worth highlighting the great performance of the young Spanish professional, Noemi Jimenez, who finished with a round of 66 strokes today, including an eagle on the 18th hole to finish with a total of seven under par in fourth position, tied with Rod Bastard and Dominik Pietzsch. Splendid performance of the Guadalmina-bred golfer, who has chosen the Gecko to prepare for the LPGA Tour School Grand Final.
Interestingly, Rodiles is Noemi’s manager. “We are helping her and advising her with sponsors and we have high hopes for her. She is a very hard-working player and has a very consistent game. She takes a lot of fairway and a lot of green. She is going to play the finals of schools in Europe and the United States, although her clear objective is to play on the other side of the Atlantic. For the time being, she already has a Symetra Tour card. We believe he has a bright future ahead of him, but we have to go step by step”, explains the winner.
The week of golf at the Marbella Club Golf Resort has been extraordinary. Good proof of this are the two rounds of 64 of Rodiles or the 61 of Eirik Tage Johansen. In addition, the first hole-in-one of the season was the work of the Belgian player Lars Buijs. He got it on hole 4 of the course during the first round. A total of 26 players made the cut, which was set at +2 on the second day.
Rodiles is the fourth winner of the 2015/16 Gecko. He succeeds Marcus Kinhult, Alfonso Gutiérrez and Marcos Pastor. He has won, moreover, in a similar way to Pastor, dominating the tournament from start to finish and hardly encountering any opposition. However, in no case by demerit of the others, but by his own merit, as he displayed a golf of many kilates.
The next stop for the Gecko will be at Atalaya Golf CC and Río Real GC, from November 24 to 26.
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