A golfer's hopes at a tournament would ordinarily be impeded by their clubs being misplaced in transit, but seemingly not so for Rafa Cabrera-Bello at this week's Omega European Masters.
On arrival in Geneva earlier this week, the Spaniard had the misfortune of facing the realisation that his clubs were nowhere to be seen.
So, faced with hurredly assembling a makeshift bag together, Cabrera-Bello turned to a set of irons best known for being designed for and used by Adam Scott in 2021.
The Titleist 681.AS irons, provided from the on-site Tour truck, along with clubs belonging to a member at Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club have proved a good fit for Cabrera-Bello, however.
After a five-under-par 65 to reach nine under, the Spaniard sits four shots adrift of defending champion and clubhouse leader Thriston Lawrence in Switzerland.
And on the back of a run of five missed cuts in his last starts, Cabrera-Bello couldn't help but see the funny side of his return to form.
"If I tell you, you’re going to laugh!" he said. "The big difference is that my clubs didn’t arrive this week, so I've played with a mixture of a member’s bag and Adam Scott’s irons.
"I guess there’s obviously muscle memory, there’s brain memory and then now I guess there’s irons memory, because yesterday I was ranked second in the shots gained approach, so that’s probably thanks to Adam Scott for his clubs."
But with the four-time DP World Tour winner and former Ryder Cup player now belatedly reunited with his own clubs, what does he plan to do over the weekend?
"I have a big dilemma, I really don’t know what to do!" he said.
"I will probably play with mine tomorrow, but it’s been funny playing with Adam’s. It made want to go back to blades again, who knows.
"I try not to be superstitious, but you know, the way I think about it is: if I play bad with someone else’s clubs, that’s fine.
"I am playing good with someone else’s clubs [at the moment], but there’s no guarantee I will play good with someone else’s clubs tomorrow.
"If I don’t play good tomorrow, I will always have the question: what if I would have played with my clubs? Again, you can say the inverse, but I think it makes sense to use my clubs."
Safe to say, how Cabrera-Bello fares over the weekend will be a source of great intrigue.
