Three weeks of competition underway – Lindell achieves best career result in Turkey
Oliver Lindell is off to a great start this week at the Belgian Soudal Open, followed by three weeks of continuous competition. His previous competition, the Turkish Airlines Open, saw him achieve his best career ranking of T12. However, he is not satisfied with that and has made changes to achieve his first top 10 ranking as soon as possible.
"This week, the driver will be left out of the bag entirely. We have built a mini driver with Cobra representatives, which has looked really good in training. It flies about 10-15 metres shorter, but the aim is to improve accuracy," said Lindell of his solutions to the opening challenges.
"A new driver has also been built for me, and it seems much better than the previous one. The club head has been changed to a slightly more forgiving model, but I won't be using it this week. A new lob wedge will also be introduced this week."
This week's course is not long, as it is a par 71 course, like the last one, but almost 300 metres shorter in total length. However, the narrowness of the course forces players to hit more than just the driver off the tee, which suits the Finnish player.
"It's a fairly narrow course, and a lot of the tee shots are hit with an iron. Problems start when you hit the fairway at an angle. What's nice here is that we're playing on familiar turf. My preparation after Turkey has gone well, and the mini driver gives me a lot of confidence in my game," said the Finn about his starting point.
With the exception of a few fairways, Lindell remembered the Antwerp course from seven years ago. The tournament did not bring much success for the 20-year-old from Porvoo.
If the course is familiar to the Porvoo native, so are his playing partners for the first rounds. Lindell will tee off on Thursday at 10:00 Finnish time alongside Norway's Kristoffer Reitan and South Africa's Wilco Nienaber. This is already the fifth tournament this season that Lindell and Reitan have played together. He last played with Nienaber in the previous tournament in Turkey.
"Reitan and I had a good laugh about it again. It'll be nice to play with them for the first couple of days," Lindell commented on his "lucky draw".
The trio are within 45 places of each other in the world rankings. Tapio Pulkkanen is also competing in the tournament, looking to improve after his elimination (MC) in Turkey. The Finns are ranked 65th and 66th in the Road to Dubai rankings.