Dubai: Tyrrell Hatton’s hit and miss relationship with the 18th at Jumeirah Golf Estates continued on Friday after he bogeyed the offending hole to miss out on equaling the course record at 10 under 62.
Nine under 63, following on from his first round’s level par 72, was still enough to see him occupy tied for second midway through the DP World Tour Championship, a stroke behind leader Matt Fitzpatrick, after hitting what’s still the best round of the week so far.
Ironically it was a bogey on the 18th in the final round of this event last year that saw Hatton lose by a stroke to Fitzpatrick.
In three appearances here since 2014 and 14 attempts on that hole, he’s actually parred it nine times, birdied it just twice, bogeyed it twice and even triple bogeyed it once, for an overall score of three over for the hole.
“Obviously if you had said at the start of the day I would shoot nine under, I would be over the moon,” said Hatton. “But it’s a pretty bitter pill to swallow on 18,” he said of finding the bunker with his approach. “That hole seems to hate me. Hopefully one day I’ll actually play it well.
“Overall, yeah, I’m pretty happy with today,” he said of an otherwise faultless three birdies and an eagle on his front nine and five birdies after the turn.
“But my head is a bit all over the place after 18.”
