Thomas was astounded that he finished on nine-under par and that it was still good enough to get him into a playoff against Marc Leishman. “It’s bizarre that that happened,” he said. “I never would have guessed it, especially after the first round. But it really was so, so difficult out there, especially the last two days when it was cold and hitting into the wind: your ball just goes nowhere.”
Thomas’s third-round 70 in brutal winds was the only time after the first round that he broke par again and he reckoned after that round “for a fact, I played better than I did on Thursday”. He said people watching on TV might think players were hitting bad shots and putting poorly. But without being there it was impossible to imagine the degree of difficulty. “I mean, I hit a seven-iron from 128 yards on one hole today,” he said.
A big hitter like Thomas could normally launch that around 180 yards. “The wind is just so strong and with all the trees and it bounces around and swirls a lot,” he said. “The hardest thing was putting.
The gusts when it picks up or dies, you just have to time it so perfectly. It was so difficult.”
The exhausted 24-year-old cracked a smile after beating Leishman on the second playoff hole in his final event of the autumn swing. “I am so excited to not do anything from now on,” he said, looking forward to a break after a schedule of nine events in the past 11 weeks — the past two in Asia. “I have officially nothing left in the tank.”
Thomas will rise to a career-high number three in the world when the new rankings are published today.
He had already joined Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth as the only players to win five times in a season, including a major, before the age of 25 when he won the Dell Technologies Championship before the CJ Cup. With three wins in his last seven events and six in the last 12 months Thomas has earned his break.
Scott Brown (76), the overnight co-leader with Thomas, endured a final round to forget with back-to-back double bogeys at the fourth and fifth derailing his title hopes, while India’s Anirban lahiri (74) was leading after going two-under through 13 holes, but dropped four shots over the closing five holes.
Both players finished on five-under 283, tied for fifth place with Jamie Lovemark (71), Brian Harman (71), Luke List (72) and last week’s CIMB Classic champion Pat Perez (68).
Tournament host Garcia triumphs at Valderrama
Sergio Garcia won the Andalucia Valderrama Masters to continue his excellent year, pipping Joost Luiten by one stroke after a thrilling duel. The Spaniard triumphed on home soil after shooting a 67 on the final day, finishing 12 under par for the week, with Dutch golfer Luiten achieving 66 and 11 under.
Garcia recorded his third European Tour win of the season with victory in the tournament hosted by his own charitable foundation at the Real Club Valderrama. This is the first time Garcia has won three times in a single season, after his Masters Tournament triumph in April and victory in February’s Dubai Desert Classic.
India’s Bhullar clinches commanding win in Macau
India’s Gaganjeet Bhullar held his nerve to complete a wire-to-wire victory and lift his eighth Asian Tour title at the Macau Open yesterday. Bhullar had seen his four-shot lead reduced to one in round three but yesterday, he drained five birdies on the front nine and won by three shots despite a nerve-jangling double bogey on 16.
The 29-year-old fired rounds of 64, 65, 74 and 68 for an aggregate score of 13-under 271, lifting his first Asian Tour trophy of the year. Bhullar’s fellow Indian Ajeetesh Sandhu and Filipino Angelo Que shared second place at par-71 Macau Golf and Country Club, while Taiwan’s Hung Chien-Yao was alone in fourth.
Sandhu was gunning for his third title in a row after he claimed his maiden Asian tour victory in Taiwan this month and triumphed on the Japan Challenge Tour a week later.
Bhullar, the 2012 champion in Macau, bogeyed his opening hole before he stormed ahead with birdies on two, three, four, seven and nine to turn in 31. He also birdied 13 but dropped a shot on the next and picked up his double on 16, before finishing in style with his sixth birdie of the day in front of the galleries on 18.
