Rafa Cabrera Bello is remaining upbeat and eager to recapture his mojo on the greens as he aims to make an impression at the Mallorca Golf Open, the final event of the late-season Spanish swing.
The Spaniard has missed the cut in his last two outings on home soil, firstly as the defending champion of the acciona Open de España presented by Madrid and then at last week’s Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters.
Cabrera Bello began 2022 with an impressive runner-up finish at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, but results have since been harder to come by with just one further top ten at last month’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth Club.
But the four-time DP World Tour winner, who enters this week’s event 36th in the DP World Tour Rankings in Partnership with Rolex, is refusing to get too disheartened.
“I’m happy to be here obviously, the last few events haven’t been good, and I haven’t been making the cuts,” he said.
“I honestly don’t feel like I’ve been hitting the ball that bad, but I haven’t been putting well enough consistently and I’ve just not been scoring low. But that’s golf sometimes, I’m still here, I’m still positive and I’m still looking forward to this week.
Prep done for #mallorcagolfopen Aiming for a good finish of the Spanish Swing! @DPWorldTour pic.twitter.com/azQIi4Jxcm
— Rafa Cabrera Bello (@RCabreraBello) October 19, 2022
“I don’t want to dwell on the mistakes too much because I know it doesn’t help me, but I haven’t putted well enough to be up there contending, there tends to be a knock-on effect when the putts don’t go in – your chips somehow end up a little further away and you put more pressure on the iron shots etc etc. So the game breaks down from green to tee.”
The DP World Tour is making its first trip to Son Muntaner Golf Club this week as the Mallorca Golf Open returns for the second consecutive year having debuted at Golf Santa Ponsa in 2021.
Cabrera Bello anticipates a low-scoring tournament in which he is confident he can mount a challenge to land a victory in Spain for the second consecutive year.
“I think it’s a scoreable course from what I’ve seen so far, very nice and very pretty,” the 2016 Ryder Cup player said.
“It looks in good shape too, some areas where the rough can be tricky, some areas where they haven’t been grown out that much. The greens look good, there seems to be quite a bit of movement to them as well, so I think that courses where you have to play well suit my game.
“Every course that I play, I always want to try to find a way that it suits my game, I feel that helps me prepare for it. I always end up finding a way to say that this course suits me in some way or another.”
