Willett Winner

Being chased down by the reigning Masters champion, Danny Willett held on to claim his first win since his monumental victory at the 2016 Masters. The Englishman has hardly been a model of consistency, but the DP World Tour Championship is a big stage on which he stole the show and you can’t fluke a win on the European Tour. The win takes Willett back inside the World Top 100, having been outside of 300 to start this month. Whilst consistency has eluded Willett, the victory at Dubai’s Jumeirah Golf Estates was the 14^th of the season and 333^rd of all time on the European Tour for English golfers.

After his friend Lee Westwood ended a long drought last week, we’ve been treated to two extremely popular champions to finish off the season. Speaking of popular champions…

Molinari Wins Race to Dubai

Tommy Fleetwood’s 10-under T16 ultimately decided his good friend’s fortune. The European Tour couldn’t have chosen two more popular men to be battling it out for the season-long prize, but in the end Sunday was a non-contest. Italy can now add a first Race to Dubai title to their first golf Major thanks to Frankie, and you’d like to think that the Molinari Magic will inspire a new generation of talent in a country with a modest history in the sport.

Worth Noting

Matt Wallace capped off an incredible three-win season with a T2 in Dubai. The 28-year-old slipped under the radar somewhat in racking up the titles due to the calibre of field they’ve come against, but this result proves his ability against the strongest of fields. He’s one to watch in 2019.

Shubhankar Sharma’s two-win debut season on the European Tour earned him the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year award. Wins at the Joburg Open and Maybank Championship, along with Top-10 results at the WGC-Mexico and on home soil at the Hero Indian Open, etched his name on a trophy alongside Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Sergio Garcia, Colin Montgomerie, Sir Nick Faldo and many more distinguished golfers.

Danny Willett – What’s in the Bag

Driver: Callaway Rogue

3-Wood: Callaway Rogue Fairway Wood

Irons: Callaway X Forged Utility, Callaway X Forged 18

Wedges: Callaway Mack Daddy Forged, Callaway Mack Daddy 4

Putter: Odyssey Stroke Lab (Prototype - Coming 2019)

Golf Ball: Callaway Chrome Soft X

Written by Joe Carabini

joe.carabini@foremostgolf.com

Gary Player Country Club is home to some of the world’s most amazing wildlife, but last week it played to host to some of the world’s greatest golfers in the penultimate event of the 2018 European Tour; the Rolex Series Nedbank Golf Challenge.

Sergio Garcia obliterated the field on Thursday in South Africa, getting around Gary Player Country Club in 64 with eight birdies and zero bogeys to boast a four-stroke lead. In typical Sergio style, he shot back-to-back 1-under rounds of 71 to build a score of -10 heading into the final round. His nearest challenger was home favourite Louis Oosthuizen on -8, with Belgium’s Thomas Detry, Finland’s Mikko Korhonen & England’s Lee Westwood sharing third on -7.

Player’s Punishment

On Friday, Ross Fisher was on course for an 8-under round after an eagle and six birdies through 14, before a quintuple bogey at the par-5 15^th followed by three consecutive bogeys brought the Englishman back to level-par. Whilst birdies and eagles were fairly free-flowing, the wildlife-filled course claimed plenty of double, triple & even quadruple bogeys throughout the week with the unforgiving surroundings punishing wayward drives to devastating effect. Just ask Marcus Kinhult, who racked up a whopping 11-over with six bogeys and 3 doubles to a lone birdie on Saturday. In fact, the methodical Sergio was the only man to finish in the Top-6 and not record at least one double-bogey throughout the week.

Frantic Finale

Sergio, the round 4 leader, bogeyed the first to open things up and Westwood took full advantage with a sublime eagle at the second. Oosthuizen then birdied the third to give us a three-way tie at the top before taking the lead with another birdie at the 5^th. Sergio levelled it up at the next, then Oosthuizen retrieved the lead at the next; making it -11, -10, -9 between himself, Sergio & Westwood respectively. The South African then handed a shot back as Westwood gained one at the next to make it a three-way tie AGAIN at -10. Apparently allergic to pars, Oosthuizen then delighted the home crowd with a birdie at the 9^th to start a three-hole birdie streak around the turn. That built up a two-stroke lead, only for him to blow it at the 12^th with a bogey to Sergio’s birdie. Two tied for the lead and Westwood one behind with six to play.

Sergio steadied the ship with six consecutive pars to close… the other two did anything but. Both Westwood and Oosthuizen shot consecutive birdies over 13 & 14 to leave Sergio dwindling in third, but it was a bogey at 15 for the local lad that gave Westwood a share of the lead at -13. The Englishman seized his opportunity with another set of back-to-back birdies over 16 & 17 to reach -15. Oosthuizen fell victim to the course’s notoriously common double-bogeys at the last to hand Sergio outright second.

Westwood’s Win

On the same day that Matt Kuchar sealed his first PGA Tour victory since 20^th April 2014, Lee Westwood won his first European Tour title since 20^th April 2014. Westwood’s flawless 8-under Sunday was deserving of any Tour title, and you could see how much it meant for the Englishman to snap a four-year winless streak as the tears flowed nearly as much as the champagne after seizing his 24^th European Tour title and 43^rd worldwide at the age of 45. Without doubt, an extremely popular champion.

Lee Westwood – What’s in the Bag?

Driver: PING G400 LST

3-Wood: PING G400

Hybrid: PING G

Irons: PING i210 (4-PW)

Wedges: PING i210, Glide Forged

Putter: PING Sigma 2 Fetch

Golf Ball: Titleist Pro V1

Written by Joe Carabini

joe.carabini@foremostgolf.com

It’s All Rosey

Since 2017, Justin Rose has played 31 events: 5 wins, 15 Top-5s, 24 Top-10s, one outside the Top-50 and just ONE Missed Cut. He’s now the World No. 1 for the second time this year, but that says very little about the magnitude of what the Englishman has achieved. His latest win came in Turkey at the start of the European Tour’s final stretch of three consecutive Rolex Series events to decide the Race to Dubai winner. Whilst Rose’s PGA Tour commitments have restricted his climb in the Race to Dubai rankings, he is still third in the season’s leaderboard and a strong finish could see him become the best player on both Tours, having already won the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup in September.

Turkish Airlines Open

In our tournament preview I picked out Haotong Li as having a real chance at the title. The two-time European Tour winner led by three strokes heading into Sunday, but a bogey at the second and a Rose birdie at the seventh shut the gap to a single stroke at the turn. Rose then lit it up, going birdie-par-birdie-par-birdie-par-birdie between 10 and 16. Li, meanwhile, laboured to +1 through 14 following a bogey-birdie at 11 and 12. Suddenly Rose held a two-stroke lead with four to play. But Li’s second shot at the par-5 15^th claimed the undisputed title of Shot of the Week in setting up a tap-in eagle to tie up the scores at the top. With three eagles and 17 birdies, Haotong Li’s red and gold scoreboard bore a striking resemblance to the Chinese flag beside his name.

An electrifying shootout continued as Rose birdied the next to retake the lead… before bogeying the penultimate hole to level things up again. Heading to the 18^th tied on -18, separating the pair seemed damn near impossible. Both men had a par putt for victory and both missed. The pair went again on the 18^th in a playoff and Rose, whose previous par putt lipped out in excruciating fashion, nailed it this time around. Li had an eerily similar putt to the last, and produced an eerily similar result as nerves got the better of him and he snatched at it; pushing the ball well past the hole and handing the title away.

Having won this event last year, this is Rose’s first-ever successful title defence and it will taste all the more sweet knowing he returns to the summit of world golf.

Cloud F9

Plain and simple, there is no better way to market a product than to prove it works. Bryson DeChambeau, or “The Mad Scientist” to his closest friends, may already have been in scintillating form, but to put a brand new driver in your bag and go out and win a PGA Tour event straight off the bat is nothing short of remarkable. DeChambeau put the Cobra King F9 Speedback Driver into play this week at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open and edged out defending champion Patrick Cantlay with a total of -21.

Not convinced? Perhaps you’d rather listen to Rickie Fowler. The Californian recorded his best finish (T4) since finishing runner-up at The Masters and carded the lowest final round of his career (63) with the F9 Driver in his bag for the first time.

The driver in question features the brand new Speedback technology and has been dubbed The King of Speed. Cobra Golf claim to be ‘in the business of innovation’, and all the evidence suggests this latest innovation is their best yet.

Written by Joe Carabini

joe.carabini@foremostgolf.com