| Tournament preview
Marcus Helligkilde will be looking to take his impressive form into the first event of the two-week Spanish Swing as the Challenge de Cádiz takes place at Iberostar Real Club de Golf Novo Sancti Petri from June 10-13.
The 24-year-old currently sits in 12th position on the Road to Mallorca Rankings, a position that if maintained would allow him to make the step on to the European Tour next season. The Dane’s stand-out performance so far this season was at the Range Servant Challenge by Hinton Golf, recording a career-best second place finish.
Helligkilde also produced a fine showing on home soil at last month’s Made in Himmerland presented by FREJA on the European Tour where he carded a scintillating final round of 64 to finish in a tie for 25th.
“It will take a bit of luck to maintain my strong position,” he said. “I need to focus on trying to stay healthy both mentally and physically and then just doing what I do. I’m not a guy that is solely focused on results because my main goal is to be happy and enjoy my golf.
“I love Himmerland and I have played a lot of golf tournaments up there, so it felt almost like home. It just felt like one of my junior events and I want to take that feeling into all of the events that I play because at the end of the day it is just golf.”
The three-time Nordic Golf League winner feels that a strong course strategy will be needed to successfully navigate the Seve Ballesteros design this week and he admitted that he would adapt his approach on the challenging 17th hole depending on the position of the tee box.
“I have heard that the tee could be moved forward and, in that case, I will just try to hit it as hard as possible to get it as far as possible over the tree and chip it to the green. However, if the tee box is back then I will just try and hit it short of the tree in the middle and go over it with my second shot.
“Playing that hole, you can hit some decent drives and still leave it in the trees all four rounds, but you can also hit the fairway all four rounds so it is a risk and reward hole. It is all about accepting what you’re going to get on that hole.”
The Challenge de Cádiz will begin at 8:00am local time on Thursday June 10, with Helligkilde teeing it up at 09:30am alongside Englishmen Marco Penge and Todd Clements. |
