{"id":12127,"date":"2016-04-05T16:10:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T15:10:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/la-armada-espanola-promete-guerra-en-el-real-club-valderrama\/"},"modified":"2016-04-05T16:19:01","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T15:19:01","slug":"strong-home-challenge-assembles-at-valderrama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/strong-home-challenge-assembles-at-valderrama\/","title":{"rendered":"Strong home challenge assembles at Valderrama"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rafael Cabrera-Bello and Sergio Garc\u00eda will spearhead the quest for a Spanish win.\u00a0<\/strong>Cabrera-Bello rises to world number 33 with his fourth place at the Shell Houston Open.\u00a0<\/strong>22 Spanish players confirmed for the Real Club Valderrama Open de Espa\u00f1a Hosted by the Sergio Garc\u00eda Foundation.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A powerful domestic contingent spearheaded by in-form Rafa Cabrera-Bello \u2014 who finished fourth at the Shell Houston Open on the PGA Tour \u2014 and Sergio Garc\u00eda, will seek to follow the footsteps of Miguel \u00c1ngel Jim\u00e9nez (2012) or \u00c1lvaro Quir\u00f3s (2010), the last two Spanish winners of their national Open.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"P.<\/a>
P. Larraz\u00e1bal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cabrera-Bello has moved to number 33 in the world rankings after finishing fourth at the Shell Houston Open, and is second in the Race to Dubai standings. The in-form Spaniard will arrive to Valderrama fresh from his Masters debut aiming to cap with a win a remarkable season start, after two runner-up places at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic and the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters and a third at the WGC-Dell Match Play. \u201cValderrama is the kind of course that tests your whole game. You need to master all the shots and all the clubs in the bag. It always produces quality winners\u201d, says Rafa.<\/p>\n

Sergio Garc\u00eda, currently ranked 15th in the world, is another big favourite. He thrives in the testing Valderrama track where he won the 2011 Andaluc\u00eda Masters. After a solid start to the season with a near win at the Honda Classic, he will most certainly not be content with playing host.<\/p>\n

Spanish fans will also enjoy the performances of Pablo Larraz\u00e1bal, Alejandro Ca\u00f1izares, Gonzalo Fern\u00e1ndez-Casta\u00f1o, \u00c1lvaro Quir\u00f3s, Jorge Campillo, Nacho Elvira, Eduardo de la Riva, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Lara, Adri\u00e1n Otaegui, Borja Virto, Carlos del Moral, Pedro Oriol, Javier Colomo, Xavier Guzm\u00e1n, Carlos Pigem, Pablo Mart\u00edn-Benavides, Borja Etchart and Pep Angl\u00e9s. Leading amateurs Mario Galiano and Iv\u00e1n Cantero are also in the field.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Pablo Larraz\u00e1ba<\/strong>l: \u201cWe have to thank first of all the European Tour for believing that the Spanish Open has to stay in the calendar; we have to thank Sergio Garc\u00eda through his Foundation, for contributing to the success of the Spanish Open; and, obviously, we have to thank Valderrama for letting us play in one of the most iconic golf courses in Europe.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Spanish golf it will be important, because of our history, and because many people play the game. When I started on Tour we had seven tournaments in Spain on the European Tour, now we almost had zero.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd for us, for me, it is exciting to perform in my home Open. I finished second behind Francesco Molinari in Seville and had a couple more chances to win it.<\/p>\n

\u201cValderrama is a tough test. If you are four rounds around level par, you are going to be very close to the leaders on Sunday, to know that and try to do it is a big challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have seen in Valderrama in the past, the Ryder Cup, Tiger Woods winning there, Sergio winning there, Miguel making albatross on 17th, Graeme McDowell\u2026\u00a0 Only the best in the world have won there, great ball strikers. I must keep working hard to be a good ball striker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alejandro Ca\u00f1izares<\/strong>: \u201cI am very excited, it\u2019s my home course, I\u2019ll be at home, and I will have my family there. It\u2019s one of my favorite golf courses and it\u2019s going to be in great shape for sure, like always. It\u2019s going to be a lot of fun to have the Spanish Open there. Valderrama is very tricky. You\u2019ve got to keep it, not even on the fairway but on the right spot of the fairway, and try to be in all the pins in a few greens. The greens are going to be fast and it\u2019s going to be tough.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Spanish Open is our main event, an old event, and it would have been a pity to lose it.\u00a0 We\u2019re very happy that we can play it and play in one of the best golf courses in Spain; for sure it\u2019s going to be a great event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a step forward for Spanish golf. Hopefully we can get more starts like we had before, more people investing in Spain for golf tournaments. I\u2019s a pity, we only have one and have to fight for it at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cSergio\u2019s support is very important. He\u2019s our number one player, one of the best in the world for a long time, and having him support the tournament gives it that bit more strength that it needs to turn a good event into a great event\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Real Club Valderrama Open de Espa\u00f1a Hosted by the Sergio Garc\u00eda Foundation is promoted by the European Tour, with the support of Real Federaci\u00f3n Espa\u00f1ola de Golf and the Spanish High Council for Sports.\u00a0The tournament sponsors are: Reale, Rolex, Avis, Canon, Heineken, Osborne, Sol\u00e1n de Cabras and Volvo.<\/p>\n

Tickets available at:<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/tickets.europeantour.com\/event\/real-club-valderrama-open-de-espana\/real-club-valderrama\/928215<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tickets for Spanish Federation affiliates: <\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/tickets.europeantour.com\/event\/real-club-valderrama-open-de-espana\/real-club-valderrama\/928215?OfferCode=SF16&lang=es<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rafael Cabrera-Bello and Sergio Garc\u00eda will spearhead the quest for a Spanish win.\u00a0Cabrera-Bello rises to world number 33 with his fourth place at the Shell Houston Open.\u00a022 Spanish players confirmed for the Real Club Valderrama Open de Espa\u00f1a Hosted by the Sergio Garc\u00eda Foundation. A powerful domestic contingent spearheaded by in-form Rafa Cabrera-Bello \u2014 who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,576,53],"tags":[1333,1334,1335,1336,1337,1080,1081],"class_list":{"0":"post-12127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-noticias-en","10":"tag-armada-espanola-en","11":"tag-open-en","12":"tag-pga-tour-en","13":"tag-rafael-cabrera-en","14":"tag-rc-valderrama-en","15":"tag-sergio-garcia-en","16":"tag-valderrama-en"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12128,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12127\/revisions\/12128"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}