GLENEAGLES — Denmark’s Thomas Bjorn held his nerve in a five-man sudden-death playoff to win the Johnnie Walker Championship on Sunday, triumphing at the fifth extra hole to maintain his remarkable resurgence this year.
In one of the most dramatic finishes this year, Bjorn made birdie at the par-5 No. 18 — for the third straight time in the shootout — to finally shrug off plucky South African George Coetzee and claim a second victory on the European Tour in 2011.
Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger, Spain’s Pablo Larrazabal and England’s Mark Foster were eliminated one by one from a tense and energy-sapping playoff at Gleneagles that lasted more than 90 minutes and was played out in bitterly cold conditions and into the wind. All five players had finished with 11-under totals of 277.
Foster, the joint overnight leader, had earlier squandered a three-shot lead with seven holes to play, bogeying the last for a level-par 72 when all he needed was a par. It took the event to the European Tour’s first five-way playoff in 19 years.
Emboldened by a superb season which saw him win the Qatar Masters in February and finish fourth at last month’s British Open, Bjorn, who shot a final-round 69, sealed the 12th victory of his career after a sensational 7-iron approach to the fifth extra hole from 135 yards (meters).
“The way I played the last three playoff holes, I can’t be more proud of what I did,” said Bjorn, who collected a 266,000 euros (US$380,000) winner’s cheque to take his season’s earnings beyond one-million euros ($1.4 million). “That 7 iron was probably one of the best golf shots I’ve ever hit.”
It also secured another victory this year for a player over 40, following wins by Ernie Els (South African Open), Thomas Levet (French Open) and Darren Clarke (British Open), and lifted Bjorn 11 places in the rankings to No. 59.
“It’s the year of the over-40s,” he said.
“When there’s so many young players coming through, it’s nice to go out there and feel like you can still compete. It gives you a boost, that I might be 40 but that it’s not over yet.”
However, it was yet another blow for the 36-year-old Foster, who described himself on Saturday as a “serial runner-up.”
Beginning the final round tied for a three-shot lead with Spain’s Ignacio Garrido, Foster exited at the fourth playoff hole, leaving him to rue a failure to wrap up the title in regulation time when he drove into the deep rough at the last hole and landed next to a tree. After two hacks out of the rough, he then couldn’t get up and down.
A final-day meltdown was nothing new to Foster, who led or shared the lead in three previous tournaments this year — the French Open, the BMW International and the Scottish Open — without going on to win. His last win came eight years ago, at the Dunhill Championship in South Africa when he won a six-man playoff.
“It’s just a game of fractions,” Foster said.
“I honestly felt like I made a good swing off No. 18 the first time round. I just needed a break.”