Dubai, Jan 26: Gaganjeet Bhullar had three each of birdies and bogeys and a triple bogey on an extremely windy and difficult final day at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic golf.
Bhullar shot three-over 75 and finished 5-over 293 and T-50 on India’s Republic Day, the front liners were toppled aside by Lucas Herbert (68), who marked the Australia Day with an emotional win. He fought back from six behind to get into a play-off with Christiaan Bezuidenhout (68), who was also six behind the leaders at the start of the day.
Bhullar, as also Shubhankar, who missed the cut this week, will next play at the Saudi International next week.
It was also the maiden win for Herbert and it came on his 50thstart and on Australia Day (January 26). It also and moved him back into the Top-100 of the World Rankings.
As Australia continues to battle against bushfires, Herbert had a message for all his fellow Australians. He also made a reference to the bushfires and said, “”There’s lot happening in Australia right now with the fires and Cam Smith said it a couple of weeks ago when he won. Everyone around the world is behind us and hopefully we can keep fighting harder than what I did on that first play-off hole.”
“That’s nothing compared to the firefighters and volunteers that are putting out the fires so I’m sending all my love back home.”
Bezuidenhout was the one who set the clubhouse target of 9-under as he finished around the time the final pairing of Wu Ashun and Victor Perez had just turned into the back nine.
Herbert was one group behind Bezuidenhout and both shot 68 each to get to 9-under, while the players who started after them started dropping shots.
It was dramatic as Bezuidenhout found water after laying up on the last and made a clutch putt for bogey. Coming behind him, Herbert birdied the 17th and 18thand joined him at 9-under. But that then had seemed unlikely to be the winning score as there were still seven groups to come and it had a lot of established names, but they all failed fell one by one leaving Herbert and Bezuidenhout to play off for the crown.
There was more drama as Herbert found the water with his second shot on the first play-off hole but still saved par with a stunning shot from the drop zone to take it back to the tee.
The second time around on the second play-off hole, he hit a superb second shot to get within 20 feet and two putted for birdie to take the title.
Spaniard Adri Arnaus (70), South African Dean Burmester (72) and England’s Tom Lewis (74) finished at 7-under, a shot clear of American Kurt Kitayama (75) and China’s Wu Ashun (77).
The tighter fairways and the thick rough plus firm greens meant very difficult scoring and Herbert’s winning total 9-under was 15 shots morethan Bryson DeChambeau (76), who was T-8 this time.
Overnight leader Wu chipped in for birdie on the seventh but four bogeys and a double between eighth and 15thsaw him fall out of the race and finish T-6.
Bryson DeChambeau, 9-under after 14 holes, bogeyed each of his last four holes and fell to 5-under and T-8, and Fleetwood bogeyed four times between ninth and 15thto finish T-11.
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