Emilio Cuartero Blanco is focused on earning a place in the Challenge Tour Grand Final when he tees it up in the Andalucía Challenge de Cádiz at Iberostar Real Club de Golf Novo Sancti Petro from November 11-14.
The Spaniard currently lies in 77th position on the Road to Mallorca Rankings and will only travel to the island of Mallorca for next week's season-ending event if he is one of the top 45 available players from within the leading 65 on the Rankings.
Having finished 11th in last week’s Andalucía Challenge de España, which was held at the same venue as this week’s event, Cuartero Blanco knows what he needs to do to secure a spot in the field in the Grand Final at T-Golf & Country Club.
“At the end of the day, I finished 11th last week, and almost getting in the top ten is always positive,” he said. “I played well but I had some mistakes down the stretch every day that cost me the tournament, pretty much.
“I seemed to make some bogeys on the back nine and not enough birdies, which is weird because I see the front nine as tougher and the back nine is easier because 11, 12, 13, 14 are some holes that you can make birdies on. The back nine is something I need to improve on this week.
“Goals change all the time but my goal now is to have two good weeks here and qualify for Mallorca. I know the top five is far away so really, I would have to finish in the top five this week and win the Grand Final. I just realised that. It’s something that will be hard to accomplish but this is my goal.”
The Seve Ballesteros-designed course in Cádiz is highly-regarded as one of the legendary Spaniard’s greatest design achievements and 29-year-old Cuartero Blanco has thus far enjoyed the entire experience inside the tournament bubble.
“Cádiz is a great place,” he said. “It’s a good hotel, nice beach which we can exercise on once a day and the food is also good, but it’s always excellent in Spain.
“The course is great. I love the design. I’m not a big fan of trees in the middle of fairways but I love the design. It challenges you a lot and I like that.”
The Andalucía Challenge de Cádiz gets under way at 8 am local time on Wednesday November 10, with Cuartero Blanco teeing off alongside Northern Ireland Open Supported by The R&A Champion Tyler Koivisto and England’s Matt Baldwin at 9 am local time.
