DP World Tour contender decries ‘ridiculous’ pins at European Masters

“A day to neglect however a day for the @DPWorldTour refs to neglect,” Smith wrote. “The quickest these greens have ever been by far however they nonetheless determine to make use of the identical pins as previous plus with excessive winds in the present day. Even with the right circumstances yesterday a couple of of the pins had been ridiculous.”

Then, a couple of minutes later, Smith added: “Plus the forecast was out at 6am with the primary tee time being 7:30/45 so had time to vary them!”

Winds of 35 mph precipitated scores to balloon on Saturday, leading to a subject scoring common of 74.16, virtually 5 photographs greater than it was in first two rounds, which averaged 69.83 and 69.81, respectively.

After a third-round 73, Matt Wallace led the sector by 4 photographs, and shared his ideas in regards to the course’s issue.

“Brutal, actually onerous,” Wallace stated. “Felt I hit the ball simply pretty much as good, in the fitting areas — they had been the incorrect areas by the seems to be of it.

“At the moment wasn’t about actually taking pictures below par,” he continued. “It was about maintaining my lead and I did that and I’ll try to take the ego out of the three over, which I’m not blissful about these kind of scores however I most likely left two or three photographs on the market which might have been an unbelievable rating.”

In keeping with Golf Channel analyst Jim Gallagher, Jr., Smith’s criticism was warranted.

“It’s a legit gripe, particularly on the twelfth gap,” Gallagher stated on “Golf Central.” “They most likely acquired caught pondering it wasn’t gonna blow as onerous. However if you begin placing balls off the inexperienced and going into penalty areas, it’s just a little ridiculous. And we noticed that, particularly on the again 9. Some gap places had been iffy. You get greens which can be as quick as they’ve been, wind blowing like that, it’s gonna get foolish.”

After a final-round 67 on Sunday to succeed in 5 below total, Smith in the end completed T12 — six photographs shy of Wallace’s profitable rating of 11 below. Wallace ended up claiming his fifth DP World Tour victory — and first DP World Tour win in six years — by defeating Spain’s Alfredo Garcia-Heredia with a birdie on the primary playoff gap.

Golf.com Editor

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