Ahead of his debut at the Maybank Championship in Malaysia, up and coming Spaniard Nacho Elvira writes about Tour travels, the Challenge Tour, friends, playing in the dark in Dubai and more…
I’ve never been to Malaysia before. This is my first time qualifying for this tournament, so I don’t know what to expect! I’ve seen some pictures of the city and it looks great and I’ve heard the golf course is fantastic. It’s meant to get quite warm and humid over here, so we’ll see what happens.
It’s great to travel to all these places, especially in months like January and February, which are really cold back home. To come somewhere where the sun is shining and it’s 22 to 25 degrees is unbelievable. Getting to see new countries and cities is something that I look forward to every week and hope to keep doing for a little while longer.
It felt great to be named the Graduate of the Year last week. It’s a big honour to be recognised as the best guy to graduate from the Challenge Tour last year, so I’m very happy and looking forward to another positive season.
Spending 2015 on the Challenge Tour got me really prepared for a year on the European Tour. I came close to winning a couple of times in 2016, like in Morocco and the Italian Open. It was a great year and I had a good finish as well, getting into The Race to Dubai Final Series. I think it’s going to be tough to match it, but I’ll try.
I don’t set too many goals, but I’d love to get to the Final Series again and the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. Apart from that, I just try to enjoy everything week by week. Being in The Ryder Cup is a goal for everybody. It’s something that is far away right now. I’m just going to stay focused on every week and enjoy every week. That’s just how I play my best golf.
My coach José Rivero played in two Ryder Cups. When we sit down to have dinner or lunch we sometimes talk about his good memories of The Ryder Cup and all the other tournaments he played in and won. We talk about The Ryder Cup every once in a while, but I try to just ask him about the tournaments he’s won and all the things that made him happy when he was a player.
The relationship with my caddie Diego is also great.We started last year in Abu Dhabi, but we’ve been friends for a long time. He used to play professional golf as well, so he really knows how this whole world works and how to get around a golf course. We travel together, we’re good friends and even have dinner every day, so he’s like a brother to me.
Out on Tour I try to get along with everybody, but usually I hang out with Jorge Campillo and some of the other Spanish guys. We try to travel with each other and spend some time together.
Sergio Garcia is a big influence for me. He’s been the best ranked Spanish player for the last 20 years. I look up to him a lot. I don’t get a chance to spend a lot of time with him, but I played with him last week in Dubai when he won and he’s always really nice to me. Hopefully I can keep playing better and see him some more.
The 18th hole we played together last week in Dubai was unusual, as it was almost completely dark. We played that hole with intuition as we could barely see anything. For the tee shot and the approach we just used as big a target as we could see, like the big tent behind the green. Once on the green we just had to use the green book to read the putt and it ended up dropping in for eagle!
We could barely see him in the dark...
— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) February 4, 2017
But @nachoelvira87 somehow made eagle at 18. pic.twitter.com/vv8HN5OvOP
There are some good players coming up this year.I played with Jordan Smith at the end of last year in Hong Kong. He’s a great player, winning the Challenge Tour last year, and the first few tournaments he’s played this year he’s done well in, so I’m expecting good things from him.
My fellow Spaniard Pep Angles has only had a couple of chances so far, because he didn’t get in in Abu Dhabi and he wasn’t in Dubai either. He didn’t have any Challenge Tour status at the start of last year, so getting your European Tour card with no status at the beginning of the year is a great accomplishment. I think Pep is going to do great this year.
