Staff WriterRomain Wattel has decided that the GAC Rosa Challenge Tour should come with a little French flair.
After two rounds at Rosa Golf Club in Poland, the 34-year-old Parisian is leading the dance by a single stroke, having carved out a bogey-free 66 that looked about as effortless as buttering a croissant.
Six birdies later, Wattel stands at nine under par, perched just above a tightly packed peloton of four players all jostling at eight under. It’s a lead so slim it could slip through his fingers like fine sand, but for now, it belongs to him.
“It was really important for me to start well, to make sure you’re not battling to make the cut or to be under pressure too quickly,” Wattel said, sounding more like a man ordering coffee than dissecting the art of professional golf.
And start well he did. Wattel birdied two of his opening three holes, added another at the sixth, and by the time he’d rattled in back-to-back gains at ten and eleven, the Frenchman was looking as comfortable as a Bordeaux in a crystal glass.
His final flourish came with a closing birdie at the 18th, a hole many were treating like an angry border guard.
“It was a nice start and I played really good all round. Then hole 18 is a really tough hole and a birdie on there is always a bonus,” he explained. “I’m really happy. I played good golf today and made some good putts.”
For those with long memories, Wattel’s name isn’t new. He lifted a trophy on the HotelPlanner Tour as an amateur in 2010 and cracked the DP World Tour winners’ circle in 2015 at the KLM Open. Now, with the weekend looming, he’s eyeing another shot at silverware, though he knows the road is far from clear.
“It’s really packed at the top so anything can happen,” he admitted. “The guys now shoot low scores every day so I will have to play good golf.
Every day it’s a different course with the wind and the pin positions, so we’ll see tomorrow. I won’t change anything, just try to hit fairways and hopefully get some opportunities on the greens. It’s always important to have good finishes, so I’ll just try to do my best and we’ll see on Sunday.”
And “packed” hardly does justice to this leaderboard. Swede Hugo Townsend, South Africa’s Bryce Easton, Germany’s Anton Albers, and Italy’s Renato Paratore — who could snag automatic promotion to the DP World Tour with a third win this season — are breathing down Wattel’s neck on eight under.
Not far behind lurks New Zealander Sam Jones alongside Portugal’s Pedro Figueiredo, who shot the round of the week with a sizzling eight under 62 that made the rest look like they’d brought butter knives to a sword fight.
As the GAC Rosa Challenge Tour edges into moving day, Wattel will tee it up in the final group at 11:44 a.m. local time, flanked by Townsend and Easton.
With just a single stroke to play with and a queue of hungry challengers behind him, Wattel knows the weekend will demand not just precision, but perhaps a touch of panache.
