Pic courtesy: European Tour
January 25, 2014: Sergio Garcia of Spain won his 11th European Tour title at Commercial Bank Qatar Masters at Doha , when he was no where in contention in past three days. Garcia charged at the right moment and For the second year running he finally got his hands on the trophy.
On India’s front Gaganjeet Bhullar emerged the best place Indian with a final round of 69 to be tied 22nd on the leaderboard.
While, Shiv Kapur slipped 7 spots today to finish seven under 281. What undid his performance was a double bogey on the par-4 fifteenth hole to lie at 33rd position.
Jeev Milkha Singh finished tied 43rd with a total of four under par 283.
[highlight] The up and down from the bunker in the play-off was key and I’m very happy to be able to win it, said Garcia [/highlight]
The winner, Garcia defeated Finland’s Mikko Ilonen on the third hole of a sudden-death play-off .
A flawless closing 65 saw Garcia set the clubhouse target of 16 under par, but the 34 year old crucially missed from eight feet for a birdie on the last and then looked on as Ilonen birdied the 16th and 18th to complete a 66 and force extra holes.
The players returned to the 18th for the play-off and both found the green on the par five in two, Ilonen missing his eagle attempt from 30 feet before Garcia did likewise from half the distance.
A second visit to the 18th failed to identify a winner, Ilonen missing an eagle attempt from 20 feet after Garcia had got up and down from a greenside bunker.
However, the third extra hole proved decisive as Ilonen found the same bunker and was unable to rescue a birdie, leaving Garcia a tap-in to secure an 11th European Tour title after his long eagle putt had narrowly missed.
“It feels good,” said Garcia, who will move from 11th to inside the Official World Golf Ranking’s top ten on Monday.
“It’s funny because I started the day thinking if I can shoot six or seven under maybe I can have a chance, and it turns out I had a very similar putt that I had last year to get it to 17 under on 18; I hit a good putt and unfortunately it didn’t break.
“The up and down from the bunker in the play-off was key and I’m very happy to be able to win it.”
Thorbjørn Olesen had a great chance to join the play-off but missed from 15 feet for an eagle on the 18th, the Dane sharing third place with joint overnight leader Rafael Cabrera-Bello, who could not recover to meet the success at the end.
