Stefano Mazzoli and Lucas Bjerregaard both credited a different approach to their individual games as they head into the weekend tied at the top of the Estrella Damm Catalunya Championship leaderboard.
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While he’s yet to crack the top 20 on Tour it was rookie Mazzoli, who secured promotion to the DP World Tour by a top eight finish on the 2025 Road to Mallorca Rankings, that set the early target on Friday with a bogey free 67.
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Having opened with a 66, the Italian made a quick start to the second round with back-to-back birdies from the first before converting an impressive approach to the fifth hole for a third gain of the day.
What followed was a remarkable run of 11 straight pars before a birdie-birdie finish led him to set the pace, nearly chipping in for eagle at the last as the rest of the field endeavoured to catch him.
Meanwhile, Bjerregaard was also quick to credit a different mental approach as he matched Mazzoli with his own final hole birdie to cap off a second round 67.
Playing in just his third DP World Tour event of the season the two time DP World Tour winner, who finished 145th on last year’s Race to Dubai Rankings presented by DP World, has admittedly struggled over the past few years but looked comfortable as he chased down the lead on day two.
The Dane opened his second round with a birdie at the tenth and parred the next six holes before ending his front nine with back-to-back birdies and adding a third in a row at the first to start his back nine.
Two holes later he converted an 18-footer for birdie on the 12th to join the top, narrowly missing a chance to gain the outright lead from the fringe of the 14th.
A mistake with his approach to the 17th left him unable to get up and down for back from behind the green, but a birdie on the final hole of his round helped him to match Mazzoli and take a share of the 36-hole lead.
A shot behind the pair at the top is South African Yurav Premlall, who carded the lowest round of his DP World Tour career with an eight-under-par 64 to head into the weekend on ten-under.
Premlall, whose best finish so far this season is a tie for 31st at the Hero Indian Open, said he is taking it one step at a time rather than trying to think of what’s at stake.
JC Ritchie, who also carded a second-round 64, lies a shot further back on nine-under-par alongside Ricardo Gouveia.
Player quotes
Lucas Bjerregaard: Yeah, there was a couple of stressful situations I put myself in, but other than that, I gave myself a lot of good looks and putted nicely and took advantage of the chances I had. So yeah, it’s nice. It’s been a while since I’ve been on top of the leaderboard, but yeah, that’s always nice.
It is important. I’m trying to take a little different approach to it this year and take it a little more as it comes. I’ve been stressing a lot about golf for the last many years, and I’m trying to be a bit…I’m not really sure how to put it but just take everything a little bit lighter and go, yeah, as we go.
I think that’s the thing I’ve figured out about golf in the last five years is that, you know, it was good today, it was good yesterday, but you never know about tomorrow, you never know about next week. So I’m kind of not trying to put too much on these last couple of rounds, but I’m obviously very happy to be where I am and hopefully that can continue for a couple more days.
