Often brilliant this year on legendary American courses, the French number one has still not found the key to the Albatross of national golf.
At the national golf course (in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines),
In golf, you should never say never. But when you don’t have a path in mind, it’s sometimes difficult to fight fate. Pavon, who has been knocking on the door of the world top 20 for several months, has changed dimensions over the past year and is almost always present at major events. But not on the Albatross which he still cannot tame. He has never really shone at home on the star course of the Golf National de Saint-Quentin en Yvelines, host of the French Open for thirty years, with 4 missed cuts out of 6 and a 30e place as the best result in 2022: “ I know it’s a complicated tournament for mehe repeated Wednesday to the press. I’ve always said it. I absolutely don’t like playing here. It’s a very selective course, superb, but I don’t like playing this place “. Attempts at explanation. The flamboyant winner of Farmer Insurance on the PGA Tour last January is not very comfortable on the greens of the 2018 Ryder Cup course: “I am not very comfortable with this type of greens which are quite fast but which will quickly be walked and warped. »
Ahead of the Olympic Games, he confided to the Figaro mid-July: “ I won’t hide it, it’s a path that doesn’t necessarily suit me. I struggled here for years. But, at the same time, I have also “struggled” in my professional career for years, and this year is the most complete and the most accomplished. We are resetting the counters to zero for the Games. If there is a time in my career when I feel most equipped to perform on this course, it is now. I start from the principle that, over a week of golf, we can beat anyone, even on a course that does not necessarily suit us and on which we have had poor performances.s.»
Missed. The magic of the Games did not work either with four days to forget. A bitter failure. At least on a sporting level. Because for the Bordeaux resident the Olympic adventure “at home” will remain an enchanted parenthesis: “ I had a bad week gaming-wise (58th at +13). It happens. What was incredible was to feel, after seven months outside Europe, this fervor for French golf and to be able to share these emotions. To see people very happy to see me, to just be able to share their joy with the results I was able to have this year (…) I just wanted people to be happy to come see me play. This is what was perhaps difficult for me to manage. I played for something that was perhaps bigger than just my own personal enjoyment. These are memories that will stay with you forever. »
Mentally tired after a successful and very busy season, on the 26the world does not approach – a priori – the French Open in the best conditions. Seeing him perform would therefore be a real pleasant surprise: “ Playing on the weekend would make me happy because it would allow me to spend two more days with the family, with the friends who come to see me play.” And you never know, the French number one will perhaps begin to like this course which has been denied him for so many years…
