Moscatel Nachshon’s early leads holds up
Marcatel Nachshon in action today – image Australian Golf Media
As play drew to a close on day one of the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland it became clear that the brilliant morning round of 63 by Spain’s Joel Moscatel Nachshon would remain at the top of the leaderboard heading into day two.
Moscatel Nachshon was out in the morning field, but in the last few groups of that group, and avoided some of the very early breeze and light drizzle and so had almost perfect conditions. But even allowing for such, the 25-year-old produced a brilliant course record-equaling round highlighted by a stretch of five consecutive birdies in the middle of his closing nine.
“Yeah, it was nice,” said the leader. “I didn’t even know which was the course record, we just play our golf and it was so nice to equal that record. It was so fun today.”
Moscatel Nachshon only narrowly missed his DP World Tour card at the recent Q School but gained a start at Royal Queensland through a category where those just missing their tour cards were eligible.
“At the start of the first stage of Q School a guy from the DP World Tour told us that if we were making the cut, (after 72 of the 108 holes) we could play these events. So was no doubt if I was making the cut to come over here and see Australia and play those tournaments here.”
Missing out on his full playing rights was disappointing for Moscatel Nachshon but he was and is philosophical about the outcome as he now has full playing rights on the Challenge Tour which he did not have previously.
“It’s hard but at the same time I was playing on a satellite tour and had some invites on Challenge Tour, so being able to plan a full schedule on Challenge Tour was a big thing for me even if I wasn’t having a DP World Tour card. I wanted to have it, but one shot in six days is nothing. So, it is what it is.”
When asked about the possibility of winning this week the leader was not getting ahead of himself.
“I mean, I know it, (what’s at stake) but as I said, we still have to play three more days of golf, so it’s a lot of tournament left. In the Spanish Open one of my best friends was leading at one point. He finished the first day third and you always think like he’s going to win, but there’s a lot of golf to play and a lot of good players.”
Moscatel Nachshon leads by one over Min Woo Lee and by two over NSW golfer John Lyras who finished joint runner-up at this year’s New Zealand Open.
Adam Scott is amongst a large group at 5 under but one of the pre-tournament favourites Cam Smith struggled to a round of 73 and will need perhaps a round of 67 tomorrow to make the weekend with the cut looking at this stage to be 1 or 2 under.
