DP World Tour contender decries ‘ridiculous’ pins at Omega European Masters

Conditions were so difficult at the DP World Tour’s Omega European Masters at Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club in Switzerland on Saturday that one contender took to X (formerly Twitter) to sound off.

Englishman Jordan Smith, who at one point climbed to within one shot of leader Matt Wallace early on Saturday, ultimately fired a third-round 77 (seven over par) after a brutal back nine that included three bogeys, a double, and a quadruple-bogey 8 on the par-4 12th hole.

After the round, Smith vented on social media.

“A day to forget but a day for the @DPWorldTour refs to forget,” Smith wrote. “The quickest these greens have ever been by far but they still decide to use the same pins as old plus with high winds today. Even with the perfect conditions yesterday a few of the pins were ridiculous.”

Then, a few minutes later, Smith added: “Plus the forecast was out at 6am with the first tee time being 7:30/45 so had time to change them!”

Winds of 35 mph caused scores to balloon on Saturday, resulting in a field scoring average of 74.16, almost five shots higher than it was in first two rounds, which averaged 69.83 and 69.81, respectively.

After a third-round 73, Matt Wallace led the field by four shots, and shared his thoughts about the course’s difficulty.

“Brutal, really hard,” Wallace said. “Felt I hit the ball just as good, in the right areas — they were the wrong areas by the looks of it.

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“Today wasn’t about really shooting under par,” he continued. “It was about keeping my lead and I did that and I will try and take the ego out of the three over, which I’m not happy about those type of scores but I probably left two or three shots out there which would have been an unbelievable score.”

According to Golf Channel analyst Jim Gallagher, Jr., Smith’s complaint was warranted.

“It’s a legit gripe, especially on the 12th hole,” Gallagher said on “Golf Central.” “They probably got caught thinking it wasn’t gonna blow as hard. But when you start putting balls off the green and going into penalty areas, it’s a little ridiculous. And we saw that, especially on the back nine. Some hole locations were iffy. You get greens that are as fast as they’ve been, wind blowing like that, it’s gonna get silly.”

After a final-round 67 on Sunday to reach five under overall, Smith ultimately finished T12 — six shots shy of Wallace’s winning score of 11 under. Wallace ended up claiming his fifth DP World Tour victory — and first DP World Tour win in six years — by defeating Spain’s Alfredo Garcia-Heredia with a birdie on the first playoff hole.

Golf.com Editor

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of female varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everyone on the masthead. She can out-hustle them in the office, too, where she’s primarily responsible for producing both print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview series, “A Round With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in both in the magazine and in video form on GOLF.com.

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