IS MOLAS (Sardinia), Nov 4: Gregory Havret became the second successive rookie winner of the Italian Open on Sunday when his closing three-under-par 69 for 20-under-par 268 earned him the title by a shot from Britain’s Bradley Dredge.
After regaining the lead he had lost to Germnay’s Sven Struver the previous day, the young Parisian never looked back and his three back-nine birdies earned him the $150,000 first prize.
The experienced Struver, by contrast, perished with a triple-bogey on the 12th when he went into a pond twice and it was Welshman Dredge who took over, seeking his maiden tour title as well.
And the Briton might have won but for an untimely double-bogey at the par-four fifth where he hooked into bushes.
Final round scores:
268 Gregory Havret (France) 65 66 68 69
269 Bradley Dredge 69 66 65 69
271 Mark Roe 63 69 73 66, Ian Poulter 67 69 68 67, Shaun P Webster 70 67 66 68, Diego Borrego (Spain) 70 66 65 70
272 Henrik Stenson (Sweden) 67 70 68 67, Steve Webster 68 67 68 69
273 Markus Brier (Austria) 70 66 70 67, David Howell 71 66 68 68, Michele Reale (Italy) 63 73 68 69, Fredrik Andersson (Sweden) 65 72 67 69, Trevor Immelman (South Africa) 70 67 65 71
274 Stephen Dodd 70 68 68 68, Mikko Ilonen (Finland) 68 71 66 69, Sven Struver (Germany) 66 68 64 76
275 Jonathan Lomas 68 72 70 65, Anthony Wall 66 71 72 66, Warren Bennett 70 71 68 66, Richard Green (Australia) 72 69 66 68, Jean Van de Velde (France) 67 65 74 69, Silvio Grappasonni (Italy) 70 65 69 71—Reuters