Since coming through the Qualifying School in 2007, Pablo Larrazábal has played 19 consecutive seasons on the DP World Tour, racking up 481 appearances and nine wins - but the pressure of playing to make the cut is still as raw as ever.
The 43-year-old Spaniard arrived at this week’s KLM Open on the back of eight missed cuts and faced a marathon 26-hole Friday after weather delays in round one.
After 19 of those holes he was three under and closer to the top of the leaderboard than the cutline but when he found water at the third – the 12th hole of his second round - everything changed.
“The first 11 holes were in the top five in my career,” he said. “I was three under at that time, looking up the leaderboard knowing that if I could make one or two more I was right in there.
“Then I mis-hit the third shot on the third hole, put it in the water and made double-bogey there.
“It’s not easy to not think about the cut. The last cut I made was in Qatar first week of February, I’m coming in with eight missed cuts in a row and suddenly it doesn’t matter how many golf tournaments you’ve played in your career – I think it’s over 480 – I started shaking. This is how tough this game is and how ugly it gets sometimes.”
On the fifth he was on the green in two with an 18-foot putt for birdie which he got within two feet of the hole. He missed his par effort and then another from a similar distance to all of a sudden sit right on the cutline.
“Those four putts at number five, they were all about shaking, I couldn’t get it in the hole from two feet, the second putt was shorter than two feet and it didn’t touch the hole,” he said.
Larrazábal feels he is hitting the ball better than ever and spoke at the Estrella Damm Catalunya Championship of his final ambition in the game to win in front of son Thiago, who turned two in April.
With responsibilities off the course comes pressure on it. It is perhaps easy to forget as a spectator or fan that for the professionals golf is a job, not just the pursuit of victory and glory but the way they pay the bills.
So when Larrazábal found position A1 off the ninth tee, a first cheque since the €12,121.24 won at Doha Golf Club was in sight.
But just like on the fifth, the nerves took over again.
“This is my 19th season out here and I have a family to support and I have a kid to take care of,” he said.
“Out of 480 tournaments in my career, probably the first five and the last five I‘ve been thinking about money and that’s not easy to play.
“On the last hole, knowing my ball was in the fairway, I thought it was done but my mind said don’t go to the right, I had 40, 50 feet on the left to put my nine iron and I pulled it... and couldn’t up-and-down. That’s how tough this game is.
“It’s tough, this game is all about grinding, it doesn’t matter whether you miss the cut by four or by six, it’s all about hanging in there and fighting and that’s what I tried to do today but the nerves let me down on the last five holes.”
At the end of his emotional interview, Larrazábal was still holding out hope that two over would see him make the weekend at The International, something he would not know for certain until Saturday morning.
But whether it turned out to be nine missed cuts in a row or a first weekend of golf in over three months, one thing was for sure, Pablo Larrazábal would keep grinding.
