Corralejo Golf Society-Fuerteventura Golf at its best-2004 Spanish Golf Open page

Corralejo Golf Society, Fuerteventura, Canary Islands

Cévaer

What a great honour for a course open a little over 2 years to be chosen to hold such a prestigious event as the Spanish Open. It was great to see the course buzzing with such activity, tv cameras, golf professionals and famous faces everywhere. In amongst all this were mere mortals like myself, Dave Cooper, Derek Mac, Phil Richards, Lol Hallet and other locals helping out on the event.

We were all lucky enough to get caddying jobs, Lol had Alvaro Salto (Spain), Phil had Greig Hutcheon (Scotland), Derek had Spanish Amateur Open winner Heidar Bragason (Iceland), Coops had Jorge Berendt and I had Gustavo Rojas. On the practice day (Tuesday) the draw was made for me, Coops and Lol to go out together with our respective pro’s, also meant to be joining us was the winner of the Seville Open, Ricardo Gonzales, however he was still celebrating his win on the Sunday and didn’t arrive ‘til the Tuesday evening.

Dave, Luna & Olivia, Gonzales Unfortunately for me, Gonzales was also travelling with Gustavo Rojas’s caddy, which meant he only needed a caddy for the practice day, somewhat of a relief after carrying around a bag that was almost as big as me for 18 holes! Derek’s fate was similar as his Icelandic player also had a professional caddy lined up for the main event. Let it be said though that our players didn’t make the cut, and Dereks player finished with a score more or less on par with that of Dereks normal round!! !! As Gustavo Rojas didn’t make the cut, he passed on his caddy to his mate Jorge Berendt who ended up one over, joint 36. Lol’s player Alvaro Salto, (a nice guy) came in 2 under par and finished joint 16th (well done Lol), Grieg Hutcheon (also a nice guy) had a bad 3rd day but ended up 7 over joint 64th.

Ferrie Both myself & Derek were very lucky to have had the chance to caddy and then get a job with European Tour Productions, the company filming for Sky Tv, so we got the best of both worlds. Throughout the 4 days of the Open, me, Derek, Joan, fisherman Dave, Jim, Andy, Pinky and Ted from Casa Spice followed the likes of Olazábal, Ballesteros, Ferrie (last years winner), Cévaer, Park, Gonzalez and all the top names of the competition. Our job was relay scores, give play order and direct cameras to anything of interest, like someone putting for an eagle or stuck in a tree etc. On roving mikes were Tina and fisherman Daves girfriend & daughter both called Karen. John was driving the camera crew and bigwigs to where they needed to go. It gave us all a chance not only to see the professionals play, but also to get to know some of them a bit. They were quite a mixed bunch too, generally they were easy to get on with but a few were a bit highly strung. One player was fined about 800 euros for saying the “F” word several times (next to a sky tv microphone live on air!) and another player snapped a club in half after duffing a shot!

On the first day I followed Olazabal, Ferrie and Siem, the better player of the three being Marcel Siem, a 21 year old German. Olazabal really struggled with the course as did Ferrie and virtually all the players. This was reflected in the winning scores being only 9 under. The 2nd and 3rd days I followed Santiago Luna, Greg Havret and Marcus Frazer who stayed in the same 3 ball on both Friday and Saturday. Also following Santiago Luna was his wife, Maria, a lovely lady and devoted fan of her husband.

At the end of day 2 the cut was made and it seemed that David Park (Wales) was unstoppable, he finished 11 under, four shots ahead of second place Cévaer, but all this was to change, after day 3 Park was on 10 under, closely followed by Gonzales 9 under after a round of 64 with Heblom & Cévaer 8 under. It was all set to be a great final day. Scores were up and down like yo yo’s, Park giving up the lead to Gonzales, it seemed that Gonzales had it in the bag until he fluffed a tee shot out of bounds on the 11th, this brought Cévaer within reach of the lead and when he eagled the 16th this put him one shot ahead at 9 under. In the end it was all down to the final green, the last 3 ball to come in was Heblom, Park and Gonzales, all tied at 8 under, a birdie from any of them would have tied the lead, they all reached the green in 2, however, Heblom and Park were either side of a green side tree 12 feet from the pin. They all managed par, not enough though to equal the lead score of 9 under from Cévaer.

After the presentation, a few of us went to a local restaurant with Phils player, Grieg Hutcheon, to chew the fat and have a few drinks. He´s a really nice fella and had some very funny stories to tell about some of the other players & caddies, none of which could be repeated for legal reasons!!
The course record was well and truly smashed by two players, Greg Havret (France) and Julien Clement (Switzerland) with an incredible round of 63! If you’ve played the course you`ll appreciate just how good that is.

All in all, Fuerteventura has left a lasting impression on many of the players, lets hope we are fortunate enough to hold another major competition in the future, hats off to Kieth Sheppard and Fuerteventura Golf Club and its staff for doing such a great job of hosting such a prestigious event.