Usually, the airline losing a player's clubs in transit to a tournament is a horror story.
But this week in Switzerland, Rafa Cabrera-Bello is making the most of it, especially by taking the opportunity to play some of the rarest irons in golf.
The four-time DP World Tour winner's clubs didn't arrive in time for this week's Omega European Masters, so he had to scrounge together a replacement set for the first two rounds at Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club.
Cabrera-Bello borrowed some clubs from a member at the host club, but for his irons, he found some Titleist 681.AS irons on the Tour truck, according to the DP World Tour. The 681.AS were designed specifically for Adam Scott in 2021 as an updated version of the legendary 680 MBs , and he recently revisited them last season.
There's only a handful of these irons in existence, but the Titleist Tour truck happened to have a set and Cabera-Bello took advantage.
The Spaniard had only made one cut in his last six starts on the DP World Tour, but with the replacement set of clubs, Cabera-Bello fired rounds of 65-66 in the first two rounds to go into the weekend four off the lead.
"I guess there's obviously muscle memory, there's brain memory and then now I guess there's irons memory, because yesterday I was ranked second in the shots gained approach, so that's probably thanks to Adam Scott for his clubs," he said on Friday.
By Friday night, Cabrera-Bello was finally reunited with his gamers, which notably feature Titleist's T100 irons, a fairly different profile from the 681.AS. After his best two rounds since May, he wasn't sure what he'd actually do.
"I will probably play with mine tomorrow, but it's been funny playing with Adam's. It made want to go back to blades again, who knows," he said. "I try not to be superstitious, but you know, the way I think about it is: if I play bad with someone else's clubs, that's fine.
"I am playing good with someone else's clubs [at the moment], but there's no guarantee I will play good with someone else's clubs tomorrow. If I don't play good tomorrow, I will always have the question: what if I would have played with my clubs? Again, you can say the inverse, but I think it makes sense to use my clubs."
That was ultimately the decision he made for Saturday.
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"There's a lot of engineering and hard work from the Titleist guys and I know these will be better," he said Friday before a third-round 69. "I have more trust in my clubs than in Adam's, although I'm very grateful.
"I will take the same scores again," he added while laughing.
Cabrera-Bello will need one of those scores or better on Sunday as he trails Paul Casey by six shots.
But, given his performance with Scott's blades, some testing during his next off week might be in store.
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