Mike Lorenzo-Vera shakes hands with his caddie after the second round of the 11th DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates on Friday. (Photo by Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)

By Kent Gray
Mike Lorenzo-Vera has a handy lead with just two laps of Earth to run in this Race to Dubai season despite a late stumble on Friday evening. All he’s got to figure out now is how not to completely trip over with the finish line begging at Jumeirah Golf Estates, a code he’s yet to crack in eight full seasons on the European Tour.

It’s tough enough with Tommy Fleetwood on your heels and suddenly in pole-position to become European No.1 for the second time in three years, much less with the three-starred Rolex Series event specialist Jon Rahm hanging tough in the season-long battle despite taking the last six weeks off. The Frenchman can also count on Rory McIlroy (74) dusting himself off after a thoroughly frustrating Friday and making a run for his fifth title of 2019 and third DP World Tour Championship.

But it’s not three of the game’s biggest names that will really worry Lorenzo-Vera after he  backed up his opening 63 with a topsy-turvy 69 to move to -12 at the halfway stage of the season decider, three shots clear of Fleetwood (68) and Rahm who closed out his 69 with an impressive eagle. Arguably the scariest name on the leaderboard is, well, Lorenza-Vera.

After 193 starts across 13 on and off seasons on tour, the 34-year-old is still searching for a maiden European Tour win. He admitted as recently as the Qatar Open in March that he was guilty of getting in his own way with self-doubt half the time.

“I had a great chat … with my psychologist, she’s been kicking my ass because I don’t believe in me and don’t believe in the fact that I can win,” Lorenza-Vera said at the time.

Almost as if on cue while in a position to win, he had to settle for a share of second place at Doha Golf Club, the first of two runner-up finishes this season after he also finished runner-up at the Andalucía Masters in June. The close calls are frustratingly rare – he was second at the 2008 China Open and lost a playoff to a Joakim Lagergren birdie at the Sicilian Open last season – and that only adds to the anxiety. In total, he can count a total of just 20 top-10s in his near 200 starts, a quarter of them this season.

To add a little more pressure over the final 36-holes, Lorenzo-Vera will be chasing the largest first place cheque in golf, all $3 millions of it, which could come close to doubling his career earnings of $4.77 million on the European Tour.

Did we mention the Frenchman is also struggling with a lingering lung infection picked up at the Nedbank Challenge last week?

No pressure then, Mike?

“I’ve got three shots lead and it’s better than three shots behind,” the world No.96 said after leading by as many as seven strokes on Friday only for dropped shots on the 16th and 18th, the latter courtesy of that tentative three-putt, to bring the fast-finishing Fleetwood and Rahm right back into it.

“It’s just going to be stressful because it’s big dogs behind me that are going to try to bite me, so it’s going to be interesting.”

Lorenzo-Vera, coached by former Dubai, now U.S.-based instructor Justin Parsons, still believes despite the scary prospects for the weekend.

“Tactically, I know what I have to do, and I know that the winds are going to be different this weekend. I’m not going to push more than what I’m doing now. I’m trying to trust my putter 100 per cent and that’s what I can do.”

What he can take into the weekend is the knowledge he outplayed world No.2 Rory McIlroy (74) by five shots on Friday.

Do you thrive in those situations, playing with the biggest of the big guns?

“Obviously I don’t have the energy to enjoy that [due to the after effects of the lung infection]. I’m just really trying to focus and just commit to the shots and let’s see what happens,” he said.

“I’ve played with him [McIlroy] a few times in competition and I struggled with him in the beginning because I over play. That was the game plan today. Don’t look at him. He’s going to hit bombs. He’s going to hit incredible iron shots sky high and stuff, and that’s not my game. Actually, I wasn’t too far from him all day long, so I was pretty happy about that.

“I played with him at the PGA Championship last year. That was some crowds and stuff, much louder than here. Feels like I’m getting used to play with him. That’s fine.”

The next test is to see how he fares in the company of Fleetwood in Saturday’s final two-ball. The answer to whether Lorenzo-Vera can cope with the name Lorenzo-Vera atop the leaderboard for the third straight day will become apparent from 12.45pm onwards.

Shots like this will help:

And this: