Eduardo de la Riva on top of leaderboard as Matteo Manassero falls for a disastrous second day at Open de Andalucía
He may be ranked 610th on the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR), Eduardo de la Riva is utilising the home advantage at this year’s Open de Andalucía and has now surged to the top of the leaderboard through the halfway mark.
Pulling in an impressive three-under, 69 on the second day, coupled with his equally impressive performance on the opening day where he carded a five-under, 67, de la Riva is now on top, leading the event by one stroke.
While the overnight leader young Matteo Manassero fell for a disastrous round of one-over, 73 on the second day, home favourite de la Riva and Pablo Larrazabal moved in to fill the gap.
Larrazabal is now poised at number two on the leaderboard trailing the leader by one stroke.
29-year-old de la Riva has been struggling with his form for almost a decade now and has tried no fewer than nine times to make it through the qualifying rounds on the European Tour.
He made it through to the mainstream European Tour a decade ago but is currently lurking in shadows with his consecutive poor performances. He was selected to be part of the field through the Spanish Order of Merit.
The young Spaniard said, “I had a poor start, I missed a three footer on the first and bogeyed the second from 20 feet. I was beginning to lose confidence, but then I hit it close and made birdie on the third - that settled me. I am very pleased with my
birdie on 18 which is a challenging hole. I took a five wood and four iron over the water”.
De la Riva fell for an early bogey at par-four, 2nd but soon recovered to card three birdies on the front nine. He made the turn to card one more before falling in for the second bogey of the day at par-three, 17th.
He closed the round with a late birdie on the 18th to finally claim the lead.
Meanwhile Manassero had a terrible start of the day when he fell for three bogeys before finally pulling in two birdies on the back nine to finish for an aggregate of seven-under, 137.
He is currently poised at joint second alongside Miguel Angel Jimenez who shot a four-under, 68.
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