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Fenasse ready for the week in France
August 29, 2018
Sitting in the 45th position on the Road to Ras Al Khaimah, Mathieu Fenasse is doing his best to stay patient ahead of the Cordon Golf Open at Golf Blue Green de Pléneuf Val André in Pléneuf, France.
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In 15 starts on the European Challenge Tour this season, the Frenchman has experienced nearly all of the highs and the lows that professional golf can serve up.In June, the 26 year old navigated his way around a difficult course at the Hauts de France Golf Open to take a share of third place. Then, earlier this month, he finished alone in third at the Vierumäki Finnish Challenge for his best result of the season — those were the highs.
The lows have included narrowly missing the cut by two shots or less on five separate occasions. Those sorts of early departures can be overwhelming for professional golfers who feel they have played well yet have failed to make the weekend.
Fenasse, however, is not letting the near-misses frustrate him, and as he prepares to enter the final eight tournaments on the 2018 Challenge Tour International Schedule, he believes he is poised to make a push towards the coveted top 15 on the Road to Ras Al Khaimah.
“The focus is always to get better,” he said. “To get better and not put too much pressure on myself. Just play hole after hole, tournament after tournament, and obviously try to get on top of the leaderboard every week.
“My game feels pretty good. I went back home to practice this past week and I worked on my putting a lot. It’s always about putting. I think that if I hit it well off the tee and I stay patient and drop some putts I can be pretty good.”
Playing in his home country for the second time this year, the Toulouse native is excited about the week ahead, and believes that the quality of French professional golf is inspiring many of his fellow countrymen as the nation prepares for The 2018 Ryder Cup in Paris.
“It feels good to be back in France,” he said. “It’s always nice to be home. You hear people around you cheering for you and you know the courses, so it’s always nice to be home for sure.”
“I think in the last ten years more French players have gone to the U.S. to study and play college golf, so a lot of us have gotten good by going overseas.
“If you have a few players playing really well at the top of the game, like Dubuisson was a few years back, or like Levy is now, it pushes the other French players to get there because we used to play with those players when we were all amateurs.
“You tell yourself ‘okay I can probably do it too’ and so I think it creates this feeling inside of you that you can do it, and you can reach that level.”
The 2018 Cordon Golf Open will be the fourth time that Fenasse has competed on the 6,468-yard layout, which is the shortest golf course Challenge Tour players will face all season. Despite having never made the cut in this event, he remains confident he will be able to buck the trend.
“I think it’s a pretty good golf course, you have to play well from the tee, and you’ll have to putt well,” he said. “I mean you have to do everything well here, it’s not long but it’s a very tricky course. I haven’t done very well in the past few years here, but I feel pretty good with everything, so I just need to be patient and try to deliver my game and it should work out.”
The 12th edition of the Cordon Golf Open begins tomorrow at 8:00 am local time, with Fenasse set to go at 2:10 pm.
