This Tour Pro Was Seven Under Through 11 Holes And Leading… An Hour Later, He Was Level Par And 29th

After 11 holes of his third round at the Austrian Alpine Open, there’s a good chance Martin Couvra was allowing the occasional thought of a second DP World Tour win in three starts to enter his mind.

That’s because the Turkish Airlines Open champion made a stunning start to Moving Day, with a bogey-free opening 11 holes that included seven birdies to take the lead. With just seven holes remaining, he must have been confident of continuing that exceptional form to cement his place at the top of the leaderboard with just one round to play.

Unfortunately for the Frenchman, golf doesn’t always work like that, as he found to his cost, with his chances dramatically hampered in a disastrous run of holes over the next hour.

The warning signs were there off the tee at the par-4 12^th when he went out of bounds. With a penalty incurred, it was already a case of damage limitation, but after making it onto the green with his fifth, he needed two further putts for a triple bogey to temper any dreams he may have had of establishing a commanding lead at the end of the day.

That seemed to rattle the 22-year-old, who proceeded to bogey the next four holes as the great work over the first 11 holes was completely undone to leave him languishing in 29^th. He then arrested the slide with a par at the 17^th before salvaging something from the round with his eighth birdie of the day at the 18th to finish with a one under 69.

All is not quite lost for Couvra, as he heads into Sunday’s action in a respectable tie for 19^th. However, with nine shots to claw back on overnight leader Marcel Schneider, the chances are he will not only need to rediscover the form of Saturday's opening 11 holes but also rely on a slip-up from others to haul himself back into contention for his second DP World Tour title.