Having driven short and left of the green on the 324-yard par-4 18th at the Club de Campo Villa de Madrid course, Siem stood over the resulting chip knowing that, should he hole out for what would be his third eagle of the day, he would register only the second round of 59 ever shot on the DP World Tour.

It wasn’t to be, although it was close, the ball missing the flagstick by inches before finishing maybe 12 feet past.

Chip for a 59…

An incredible round for @SiemMarcel ?? pic.twitter.com/0u9vqcCh3E

— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) October 15, 2023

The putt for 60, however, failed to live up to most of what Siem had produced earlier—seven birdies, those two eagles and a lone dropped shot. Never online, it missed comfortably on the left. So 61 and 17 under par for the 72 holes it was in the end.

“At the start of the day I wasn’t really thinking about winning the tournament,” said Siem, who is in strong contention for one of the 10 PGA Tour cards available off this year’s Race to Dubai standings. “I was just trying my best. I’m really pleased though. I had a chip on the last for 59, something I’ve never had before. It was pretty cool. Unfortunately, I misread the putt. But it was cool to think about the 59.”

Another who started the final round alongside Siem also caused a ripple of excitement during a final round (and tournament) dominated by Pavon. The Frenchman led from start to finish, dropped only three shots all week, closed with a near-immaculate bogey-free 64 that took him to 23 under par for the week and made off with his maiden DP World Tour title by four shots. Almost incidentally, South African Zander Lombard reached 19-under to pip England’s Nathan Kimsey and claim a distant runner-up spot.

But never mind all that. It was defending champion Jon Rahm, seeking a fourth win in this event, who had local pulses racing early. At the conclusion of his third-round 67, the Masters champion announced that “the best has yet to come” and at least for a while he was living up to that promise.

Birdies on each of the first four holes had Rahm dreaming of what would have been the unlikeliest of victories. And when two more birdies arrived before the turn, he was out in 30 and thinking big. Sadly, however, the back nine turned out to be something of an anti-climax for the large crowds following the World No. 3. Three pars were followed by a bogey on the par-4 13th. But ever the showman, Rahm finished with a typical flourish, driving the last green and leaving the putt for eagle hanging on the lip. It all added up to 64 and an eventual T-9 finish.

“Today was a good day,” Rahm said. “It was the start I wanted but not the back nine I needed. I gave myself a chance to hope. But overall this wasn’t the week I wanted. Friday afternoon [when he shot 72] cost me a lot. If I could have made a few putts like i did yesterday and today it could have been a different tournament.

“I’m still proud to have come and competed and hopefully sneak a back-door top-10,” he continued. “That is good for the stats, good for the soul. I might have just run out of energy a little bit this week. Today was just a last-gasp attempt to give the crowd what they wanted. I almost did that on 18. I hit the perfect drive and almost made the putt. It would have been an incredible way to finish.”

This time around, that sort of glory was left to Pavon. Arriving in Madrid on the back of a T-6 finish in last week’s Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, the 30-year-old Toulouse-native was clearly a man on the rise in an event where he has some positive history. A year ago, Pavon shot 19 under par and finished second—by six—to that man Rahm. “Chevaux de course,” as someone from France might say.

Main image: Stuart Franklin

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The Frenchman started 64-68 12 months ago at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid en route to a runner-up finish and has gone 63-68 this week to lead the way at 11-under.

For a long time it looked like Pavon would surrender his one-shot overnight cushion on day two but he birdied four of his last six holes to maintain that slender advantage over Dutchman Wil Besseling and India’s Shubhankar Sharma.

Home favourite Alfredo Garcia-Heredia was then at nine-under alongside Frenchman Mike Lorenzo-Vera, one shot clear of England’s Nathan Kimsey, with 11 players four shots off the lead.

Pavon is no stranger to being in contention at the right end of a leaderboard, with two wins on the Alps Tour and three second-place finishes on each of the European Challenge and DP World Tours.

This is the second time this season he has led after both 18 and 36 holes, having done the same at the Italian Open before fading away at the weekend, and he knows the importance of keeping his foot on the gas as he seeks a maiden DP World Tour win.

“I’ll just stick to my plan,” he said. “You can have a lot of opportunities out here, it’s just about staying patient and waiting for some putts to drop and then trying to catch the good momentum on the par fives.

“It looks like it’s really a place that suits my game. I have a lot of memories from last year so I really feel comfortable on the course. I see shots quickly with the yardages I’ve got.

“Today was a strange day, it could have been much better had I started stronger but it could have been worse also so I’m very pleased with the round today.

“I know that I’m putting great this week and that I would have a couple of chances on my back nine because there are two par fives.

“I just tried to stay patient and just wait for one putt to drop and that is what happened — I dropped a putt on the second for par and all of a sudden everything clicked in a little bit and I had some momentum.”

Besseling is in need of a strong finish to the season to keep his playing privileges and he sandwiched a two-putt birdie on the par-five seventh with excellent approaches into the fifth and 12th to get to double figures.

A bogey at the 16th threatened to derail his progress but he made an excellent up-and-down on the last to sign for a 68.

Sharma bogeyed the third but a sand save on the fourth and approaches inside 15 feet on the fifth and eighth saw him turn in 34.

A second bogey of the day on the tenth was followed by an excellent tee-shot on the par-three 11th and he holed from long-range on the 13th, made the most of the par-five 14th and hit a smart approach into the last in a second consecutive 66.

Main image: Matthieu Pavon. DP World Tour

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By John Huggan
This one was pre-ordained. Or at least it was supposed to be, if the majority of the pre-tournament publicity was to be believed. It was supposed to be won by a Spaniard. And it was supposed to be won by a member of the recent European Ryder Cup team.

So close.

The first part came true at the Acciona Open de España. And the second nearly did. But here’s the thing. None of the above involved Jon Rahm, the only Spaniard in the field at Club de Campo in Madrid who played for Europe at Whistling Straits last month.

As Rahm surprisingly struggled to a T-17 finish in his quest for a third consecutive victory at his home national Open, the ultimate triumph went to countryman Rafa Cabrera Bello. On a low-scoring Sunday in which only five of the 75-strong field shot over par, the Canary Islander, part of the losing 2016 European Ryder Cup side at Hazeltine National, reached 19 under par with a closing 69. His 72-hole 265 total was good enough to take Cabrera Bello into a sudden-death playoff with another countryman, Adri Arnaus, one that would last just one hole. Cabrera Bello’s birdie from 10 feet on the 332-yard 18th was good enough to clinch the victory, his fourth on the European Tour.

There was a time, not so long ago when such a scenario would have come as no surprise. As recently as the 2017 Open Championship, in which he finished T-4, Cabrera-Bello was 16th in the World Ranking. But things have changed, and not for the better. This week, the 37-year-old arrived in his homeland’s capital city ranked 231st, having recently lost his playing privileges on the PGA Tour. Cabrera Bello finished 170th in the FedEx Cup standings in 2020-21. In 26 starts, he missed 14 cuts and failed to record a top-20 finish.

Still, all of the above was forgotten during a final round that could have started less auspiciously. Cabrera Bello lost his initial two-shot advantage with a double-bogey 6 on the opening hole, where he thinned a greenside bunker shot far over the putting surface. That lapse, however, was to be his last deviation from par or better, four birdies and 13 pars following.

The last of those pars was hard-earned. Tied with Arnaus on the final tee, Cabrera Bello badly pushed his drive. The ball hit a tree, rebounded backwards onto a cart path and didn’t stop until it had retreated almost 100 yards. Bunkered in two, Cabrera Bello got up-and-down to match Arnaus’ par and set up the playoff.

“I am so happy,” said the champion, his first win since the 2017 Scottish Open, in the immediate aftermath of victory, one that paid him €233,900. “I knew it was going to be a very hard battle. I arrived here in the worst shape I have been in over the last decade and I don’t have to tell you I didn’t get off to the ideal start. But I believed in myself and had some amazing support from the crowd. Over the last couple of years, I have felt a really special connection with the people here in Madrid. They were rooting for me right from the first round. So I hung in there, knowing I would have an opportunity. To walk away with a win is very special. This is a trophy I have always wanted to win.”

Stuart Franklin
Adri Arnaus (left) and Cabrera-Bello made it an all Spanish duo in the playoff at Club de Campo in Madrid.

As for Rahm, the two-time defending champion had the small compensation of witnessing first-hand the most remarkable run of scoring on a final day in which that accolade had much competition. One over par after eight holes, Grant Forrest proceeded to make nine 3s en route to the clubhouse and a tie for third place alongside Julien Guerrier and Shubhankar Sharma. The Scot played the back-nine in seven-under 28, five shots better than Rahm. But Cabrera Bello beat Rahm by six over 72 holes, which turned out to be much more important.

Less notably, another Scot, Marc Warren, broke 70 in all four rounds. The former World Cup winner pulled up a tie for ninth place, just over a month after he shot 86 in the opening round of the Italian Open. As was made clear this week, in golf you never really know what’s going to happen.

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