Canary Islands Championship R1

Canary Islands 2021 R1
May 06-09
Golf Costa Adeje, Tenerife, Spain
€1,500,000
Round 2, Round 3, Round 4

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

Francesco Laporta carded the lowest round of his European Tour career to hit the front after day one of the 2021 Canary Islands Championship.

Canary Islands 2021 R1

“It was one of those days when everything goes in the right direction. I started thinking about 59 also, when I was nine under through 14. On 17 I was putting for birdie from five metres. I was thinking ‘just make this and go for eagle on the last’. I wasn’t so lucky on the last hole, my drive went into the trees. But I’m still nine under so I’m pretty happy about the round.”

“I get a bit nervous every time I go very low. It’s not the first time I’ve shot nine under on the main Tour, but in the first round you want to play well. I saw this scores this morning with Rhys Enoch, who was eight under after eight and I knew the course would give us lots of chances to make birdies.”

“You start to feel a bit of pressure when you start to think about a 59, but then you just need to concentrate on your game and try to do your best.”

Canary Islands 2021 R1

Laporta won twice on the European Challenge Tour and came close to a maiden European Tour win last season when he finished second at the Golf in Dubai Championship presented by DP World.

The Italian was a picture of consistency last week as Golf Costa Adeje hosted the first of back-to-back tournaments, but he showed he had truly found his feet in the final event of the Canary Islands Swing, posting a 62 to get to nine under par and lead by one from Spain’s Scott Fernandez.

“I just stuck to it,” said Fernandez. “The moment the round changed for me was on 11, I holed a nice bunker shot, it was perfect. That kind of got me going. It was tricky on the back nine with the wind, a few shots were hard to judge with the upslope. I was just trying every time to pick a good number and hit the target. Came in with a few nice shots.”

Canary Islands 2021 R1

“Bogeyed the par three 14th but I knew I was playing OK, just had to keep going shot by shot, as simple as that. Drove it quite nicely on 15, had a chance there and just hit it really close to about a foot. 16 is a tough par three, gave myself a nice putt there and it went in. Then 17 I hit a really long drive there to attack the pin. It was a back pin with a little drop behind, but I had a good number and gave myself another chance. On 18 also I finished strong.”

“The front nine is kind of tricky right next to the ocean, you get all the wind. But hey, we’ve been playing here for more than a week now. I missed the cut by one last week, had a nice practice over the weekend and worked pretty hard, got a bit of rest, nice practice rounds Monday and Tuesday. Those little things just add up.”

“You just know where to go, how the greens are. They are really small so you know the pics already, the fast putts, where the safe sides are. Knowing that a bit more you know when to attack and when to hold back a bit.”

The home contingent are well represented on the top half of the leaderboard, with Alfredo Garcia-Heredia and Adri Arnaus then at seven under par alongside Joël Stalter of France, while Pep Angles is amongst ten players at six under par.

“I played the five par fives well – I made five birdies there,” said Garcia-Heredia. “I played solid on the par threes, saved some good pars – on the 15th especially. I’ve been playing well the last few weeks and just kept doing what I have been doing.”

“I’m a much better player now. Probably when I had my European Tour card (ten years ago) I didn’t deserve it, and now that I don’t have a card my game is at a really nice level to be on Tour. I just need to compete more. These three tournaments (in the Canary Islands) are good for me. The next two in Spain, the Spanish Open and Valderrama are going to be great. I’m going to try to compete more during the year.”

A 2015 Qualifying School graduate and two-time Challenge Tour winner, Laporta triggered the second ‘59 watch’ of the day as he got to nine under after 14 holes but parred his way in to card his best round of the 2021 Race to Dubai by five shots.

Earlier in the day Rhys Enoch of Wales had raced into the early lead, going nine under through eight holes thanks to a birdie-eagle-eagle-birdie-birdie start, before recording back to back bogeys around the turn to go on to sign for a 65 and join the group at six under par.

Canary Islands 2021 R1

Pos.	Player	To Par	R1
1	Francesco Laporta	-9	62
2	Scott Fernandez	-8	63
T3	Adri Arnaus *	-7	64
T3	Alfredo Garcia-Heredia	-7	64
T3	Joel Stalter *	-7	64
T6	Pep Angles *	-6	65
T6	Aaron Cockerill	-6	65
T6	Louis De Jager	-6	65
T6	Paul Dunne *	-6	65
T6	Rhys Enoch *	-6	65
T6	Justin Harding *	-6	65
T6	Calum Hill	-6	65
T6	Richard Mansell (a)	-6	65
T6	Richie Ramsay	-6	65
T6	Kalle Samooja	-6	65
T16	Jorge Campillo	-5	66
T16	Oliver Fisher	-5	66
T16	Garrick Higgo *	-5	66
T16	Zander Lombard *	-5	66
T16	Matthieu Pavon	-5	66
T16	Eddie Pepperell *	-5	66
T16	Garrick Porteous *	-5	66
T16	Tapio Pulkkanen	-5	66
T16	Robin Sciot-Siegrist	-5	66
T16	Julian Suri	-5	66
T16	Connor Syme *	-5	66
T27	Luis Claverie	-4	67
T27	Grant Forrest *	-4	67
T27	Scott Hend	-4	67
T27	Nicolai Højgaard *	-4	67
T27	Alvaro Quiros *	-4	67
T27	Eduard Rousaud (a) *	-4	67
T27	Ricardo Santos	-4	67
T27	Max Schmitt	-4	67
T27	Jack Senior *	-4	67
T27	Shubhankar Sharma *	-4	67
T27	Suradit Yongcharoenchai *	-4	67
T38	Nino Bertasio	-3	68
T38	Dean Burmester	-3	68
T38	SSP Chawrasia *	-3	68
T38	Dave Coupland	-3	68
T38	Eduardo De la Riva *	-3	68
T38	Sebastian Garcia Rodriguez	-3	68
T38	Sebastian Heisele	-3	68
T38	Andrew Johnston	-3	68
T38	Matthew Jordan *	-3	68
T38	Niall Kearney *	-3	68
T38	Thomas Plumb *	-3	68
T38	Clement Sordet *	-3	68
T38	Matthew Southgate	-3	68
T38	Alejandro Tosti *	-3	68
T38	Dale Whitnell	-3	68
T38	Lars van Meijel *	-3	68
T54	Gaganjeet Bhullar	-2	69
T54	Richard Bland	-2	69
T54	David Borda *	-2	69
T54	Alejandro Del Rey (a) *	-2	69
T54	Victor Dubuisson	-2	69
T54	Mario Galiano Aguilar	-2	69
T54	Julien Guerrier	-2	69
T54	Shiv Kapur *	-2	69
T54	Janne Kaske	-2	69
T54	Tyler Koivisto	-2	69
T54	Romain Langasque *	-2	69
T54	Tom McKibbin *	-2	69
T54	Paul Peterson *	-2	69
T54	Haydn Porteous	-2	69
T54	Cormac Sharvin *	-2	69
T54	Sebastian Soderberg	-2	69
T54	Toby Tree *	-2	69
T54	Sami Valimaki *	-2	69
T54	Borja Virto *	-2	69
T54	Darius van Driel *	-2	69
T74	Maverick Antcliff	-1	70
T74	Austin Bautista *	-1	70
T74	Jonathan Caldwell	-1	70
T74	Laurie Canter *	-1	70
T74	Pedro Figueiredo	-1	70
T74	Tom Gandy *	-1	70
T74	Gavin Kyle Green *	-1	70
T74	Berry Henson	-1	70
T74	David Howell	-1	70
T74	Masahiro Kawamura *	-1	70
T74	Alexander Levy	-1	70
T74	Ondrej Lieser (a) *	-1	70
T74	Edoardo Molinari	-1	70
T74	Jacobo Pastor	-1	70
T74	Bernd Ritthammer	-1	70
T74	Steven Tiley	-1	70
T74	Johannes Veerman *	-1	70
T74	Ashun Wu	-1	70
T74	Fabrizio Zanotti	-1	70
T93	Sean Crocker	E	71
T93	Ignacio Elvira Mijares *	E	71
T93	Matt Ford *	E	71
T93	Scott Gregory	E	71
T93	Sihwan Kim *	E	71
T93	Richard McEvoy *	E	71
T93	Adrian Otaegui *	E	71
T93	Andrea Pavan	E	71
T93	Ajeetesh Sandhu *	E	71
T93	Marcel Schneider *	E	71
T93	Nicolai Von Dellingshausen	E	71
T104	Alejandro Cañizares *	+1	72
T104	Samuel Del Val	+1	72
T104	Gonzalo Fernandez-Castaño *	+1	72
T104	David Horsey	+1	72
T104	Raphael Jacquelin	+1	72
T104	Michael Lorenzo-Vera *	+1	72
T104	Carlos Pigem *	+1	72
T104	Robin Roussel *	+1	72
T104	Justin Walters	+1	72
T104	Paul Waring	+1	72
T114	Grégory Bourdy	+2	73
T114	Ivan Cantero Gutierrez	+2	73
T114	Yi Keun Chang	+2	73
T114	Adrian Meronk *	+2	73
T114	Guido Migliozzi	+2	73
T114	Chris Paisley *	+2	73
T114	Renato Paratore	+2	73
T114	Benjamin Poke *	+2	73
T114	Carl Suneson *	+2	73
T114	Oliver Wilson	+2	73
T124	Sam Broadhurst (a) *	+3	74
T124	Kristoffer Broberg *	+3	74
T124	Alvaro Hernandez Cabezuela *	+3	74
T124	Jake McLeod	+3	74
T124	Pedro Oriol	+3	74
T124	Oscar Sanchez	+3	74
T130	Harry Ellis *	+4	75
T130	Joakim Lagergren *	+4	75
* Player started on the back nine