European Tour: Andalucia Masters Preview at Real Club Valderrama

The European Tour season continues with the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucia Masters hosted by the Sergio Garcia Foundation, which begins on Thursday morning at Real Club Valderrama.

This will be the fifth time this event has been held, with the tournament having been held in the Andalucia region since its inception back in 2010. The event was not held between 2012-2016, before coming back onto the calendar for the 2017 season onward.

Graeme McDowell won the first Andalucia Masters, back in 2010, as he took the title by two shots from a trio of chasers. Since then, Sergio Garcia is the only other winner of the event.

The Spaniard, who seems to relish playing on home soil, has won this tournament in 2011, 2017 and 2018, and because of that, he will be one of the favourites this week.

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Last year’s victory came on the Monday of the event, as torrential downpours forced play into a fifth day, whilst also being cut short to just three rounds because of conditions. Garcia eventually won the title by four shots from Irishman Shane Lowry.

The course at Valderrama is one that holds fond memories for all Europeans. It was the first venue in mainland Europe to host the Ryder Cup. Team Europe, who were under the guidance of Severiano Ballesteros, took the victory, starting a streak of Europe winning on home soil, which runs to this day.

The 6967-yard par-71 course has been host to several major events over the years, including the now-defunct Volvo Masters. The par-5 fourth hole, La Cascada, was the subject of a Guinness World Record attempt in 2016.

Three four-man teams attempted to play the hole in the fastest time possible, with the French team of Grégory Havret, Raphaël Jacquelin, Alexander Lévy and Romain Wattel taking just 34.87 seconds to complete La Cascada.

The record has since been broken twice. An English team of Matthew Fitzpatrick, Tyrrell Hatton, Ian Poulter and Matthew Southgate did it in just over 32 seconds at Regnum Carya Golf Resort in Turkey. In January 2018, Lanto Griffin, Stephan Jaeger, Tom Lovelady and Andrew Yun took just 27.88 seconds to complete the challenge at Palm Desert Country Club in California.

Back to this year’s event and unsurprisingly, there are several Spaniards among the favourites for the trophy. Jon Rahm, Sergio Garcia, Pablo Larrazabal and Adrian Otaegui will be expected to battle it out towards the head of the field, while the winner of last week’s BMW International Open, Andrea Pavan, will be looking to continue his good form.

The man who missed out on glory in last week’s playoff, Matthew Fitzpatrick, should also be in the running, along with fellow Englishman Andrew Sullivan.

Next. Andrea Pavan Wins The BMW International Open. dark

The action starts at 08:00 local time (GMT+2) on Thursday morning, as Matthew Nixon, Yusaku Miyazoto and Sihwan Kim tee off from the 1st, while Marc Warren, Kristoffer Reitan and Spanish amateur Alejandro Del Rey get started on the 10th. The last two groups will tee off at 15:00 local.

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