David GonzalezLouis Albertse gave the Irish Challenge leaderboard a fairly violent rearrangement at Killeen Castle, shooting a nine-under-par 63 to move two strokes clear at 12 under heading into the weekend.
Five shots off the pace at the start of Friday, the South African ended it with compatriot Bryce Easton as his nearest pursuer and everyone else suddenly requiring a rather more ambitious Saturday.
Albertse answers an opening bogey with authority
The round began badly enough. Albertse dropped a shot at the tenth, his first hole, and slipped back to two under for the tournament. The sensible response would have been patience. He chose something considerably more entertaining.
Back-to-back birdies immediately repaired the damage, another arrived at the par-five 15th, and by the time he reached the turn the round had gathered proper momentum. Five consecutive birdies from the 18th carried him to seven under for the day with five holes still to play.
“It was lovely out there,” he said.
“I played great, I really did. Starting off with a bogey wasn’t great and moving to two under for the tournament you still have a lot of work to do but after that I really played nicely.”
Five birdies change the shape of the Irish Challenge
There is recovering from a bogey, and then there is making the bogey look faintly rude for having interrupted you.
Albertse’s run through the middle of the round transformed the Irish Challenge from a crowded Friday contest into something with a clear leader. His birdie at the 18th was the shot he singled out afterwards, while the sequence as a whole gave his round the acceleration that had been missing at the opening hole.
“You have to try and breath when you drop a shot early,” he added.
“You still have 17 holes to play, and it can go either way. I think my birdie on 11 after the dropped shot was one of the better birdies of my round.
“18 was a world-class birdie, and I went on to make a couple more on the front nine which was great. Going into this week I knew this was a big golf course so I’m pretty proud of getting to nine under.”
A chip-in eagle supplies the flourish
If the birdie run did the heavy lifting, the seventh hole supplied the photograph.
Albertse chipped in for eagle to reach nine under for the round and pull clear at the top. It was the sort of late-round moment that turns a very good score into the number everyone in the clubhouse notices.
His card contained eight birdies, one eagle and a single bogey. More importantly, the 63 moved him to 12 under for the tournament, two ahead of Easton.
Behind them, England’s Will Enefer, Denmark’s Kristian Hjort Bressum, South Africa’s Justin Harding and Spain’s Pablo Ereno share third place on nine under. That leaves a compact chasing group close enough to matter, but Albertse has earned the privilege of being the man they must catch.
Road to Mallorca pressure can wait
The timing of the round is useful for Albertse beyond the immediate leaderboard. He sits 27th on the season-long Road to Mallorca Rankings and already has a runner-up finish this term, achieved at the Interwetten Open in June.
With only a handful of events remaining before the Rolex Grand Final supported by The R&A, the arithmetic around promotion to the DP World Tour is difficult to ignore. Albertse, sensibly, is attempting exactly that.
“I’m not trying to think about the Rankings too much,” he said.
“There’s a lot of golf to go and points to be made. If you do think about it, you can fail to stay in the moment. We’re playing against world-class players week in and week out so staying to my processes it important.”
It is not the most glamorous part of tournament golf, this business of trying not to think about the thing everyone else is thinking about. But with two rounds left, process is probably a more useful companion than a calculator.
Albertse and Easton take centre stage on Saturday
The third round begins at 8:00 am local time, with Albertse and Easton due out together at 1:26 pm.
That pairing gives the Irish Challenge a neat Saturday headline: two South Africans, two shots between them, and a Killeen Castle leaderboard that still has enough quality immediately behind to punish any hesitation.
Albertse has not won anything yet. Friday merely gave him first refusal.
After a bogey on his opening hole and a 63 by the end of the day, that is not a bad piece of housekeeping.
