Rafa Cabrera Bello daily diary: I shot a level par 71 at Italian Open

The third round has been completed – I shot a level par 71 in windy conditions, to be tied 46th with 18 holes to play here in Rome in the €3 million DS Automobiles Italian Open at Marco Simone GC, on the DP World Tour.

Just to recap, I made the 36 hole cut by one shot which fell at one over par 143. That is high for the European Tour, and looking at the records, the highest cut in history is four over par.

The story of my day as well as my week is just too many bogeys.

In my third round I had five bogeys and for the week to date in 54 holes, I have accumulated 15 bogeys.

Contrast that with the seven from the third round leader Matt Fitzpatrick and current number two in the OWGR and leader of the DP World Tour Rankings Rory McIlroy has racked up eight bogeys so far.

Even seven bogeys is a lot and it just shows that the 7,268 yards par 71 Simeone golf course layout is all ‘designed around drama.’ It is an ideal venue for a Ryder Cup which it will be in just 376 days when the first ball will be struck on the first tee on that Friday morning in the 44th edition of this great event that I have been proud of being part of in 2016.

This week’s golf course was originally designed by Jim Fazio and David Mezzacane and opened for play in 1991 and hosted the Italian Open for three years but it never returned until this week. When Italy won the bid in 2015 to host The 2023 Ryder Cup there was a promise of a complete rebuild of the golf course. This involved ground shaping and moving of earth and fossils and lots of other stuff to create its new landscape.

It is now a tough challenging golf course that deserves to host a Ryder Cup on merit.

Looking at the top of the leaderboard it is a tournament organiser’s dream to have the best players out near the end for the last round on Sunday.

The final group today (Sunday) see Fitzpatrick paired with Rory McIlroy and Aaron Rai, with Matt one ahead of the other two on 10 under par.

It looks like being worth a watch.

My final round tee time is at 9.35 am along with a couple of new names to me: home player Filippo Celli and Maverick Antcliff (Aus).

With an Italian in my group let’s hope we get a few spectators following us which always makes it fun for us pros playing in tournaments.

Wish me luck in today’s final round, I will play my hardest as always with plenty of DP World Tour Ranking points and Ryder Cup points available – every point and shot matters in this game.

I hope you manage to watch the final round on TV, and I will be in touch at the end of play.

- Rafa, 38 years-old, is a Dubai Golden VISA Awardee, based in Dubai who has won four times on the DP World Tour, including the 2012 Dubai Desert Classic. Rafa is a Global Ambassador of JA Resorts & Hotels.