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| December 2, 2002 | Monday | Ramazan 26,1423 |
Maiden tour title for Sweden’s Jacobson
FANLING (Hong Kong), Dec 1: Sweden’s Fredrik Jacobson secured his maiden Tour victory after six second-place finishes by winning the Hong Kong Open by two shots Sunday.
A five-under-par final round of 64 put Jacobson 16-under for the event, co-sanctioned by the European and Asian Tours.
Argentina’s Jorge Berendt and Sweden’s Fredrik Nystrom, with three closing birdies, tied for second place at 14-under.
Welshman Stephen Dodd, Scotland’s Gary Orr and Denmark’s Soren Kjeldsen finished tied for fourth place at 13-under.
Jacobson, who lost a play-off to Argentina’s Eduardo Romero for the Scottish Open title earlier this year, started the day a stroke behind the three overnight leaders, which included Dodd and Berendt.
A birdie at the seventh put the 28-year-old level with Dodd. A birdie followed at the ninth, then a bogey at the 11th before another birdie helped him regain a share of the lead.
Dodd then handed his Swedish rival the outright lead when he missed a three foot putt for par at the 15th and from there on Jacobson was never headed.
He moved to 16-under with a birdie at the 14th and ended with four straight pars, including a testing putt at the last that just managed to find the bottom of the cup.
Jacobson’s run of near misses began in 1997 with second place in the Madeira Island Open. He was then pipped by Lee Westwood at the Belgacom Open a year later and twice finished runner-up in 2000. Last year he was forced to settle for a share of second behind Bernhard Langer in the German Masters.
His victory in Hong Kong lifts him to second place on the 2003 European Tour order of merit behind Ireland’s Padraig Harrington who claimed last week’s season opening Asian Open in Taiwan.
England’s Nick Faldo carded a closing round of 67 and heads to Melbourne for next week’s Australian Masters happy with his form.
A last hole double bogey blotted the copybook to leave Faldo on 10-under.
Final round scores
260 Fredrik Jacobsen 68 65 63 64
262 Jorge Berendt 68 65 62 67, Henrik Nystrom (Sweden) 64 68 63 67
263 Stephen Dodd 64 65 66 68, Soren Kjeldsen 65 70 63 65, Gary Orr 67 66 63 67
264 Tony Johnstone 64 65 67 68
265 Craig Kamps 68 63 66 68, Thomas Levet 65 65 69 66, Jyoti Randhawa 67 62 69 67
COOLUM (Australia): Australia’s Jarrod Moseley and Peter Lonard jointly won the Australian PGA Championship Sunday after carding four-round totals of 17-under-par 271 and squaring one playoff hole in fading light.
The pair both made par on the first playoff hole, the par-four 18th, at Queensland’s Coolum course before conferring with officials and shaking hands as joint winners.
Lonard started the final round five strokes behind Moseley but fired a four-under-par 68 including a 40-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole while Moseley closed with seven consecutive pars in his final round of 73.
Moseley, 30, had been 18-under-par, leading Lonard by five strokes, when the third round was completed on Sunday morning.
The 1999 Heinken Classic winner had started the day on 16-under par with eight holes to play in the third round.
A tropical thunderstorm forced the early abandonment of play on Saturday because of the threat of lightning strikes with almost half the field still to complete the third round.
Australia’s Stuart Appleby was outright third on 14-under-par 274 after closing with a 67 while former world number one Greg Norman, 47, playing to large galleries in his home state, was fourth with a four-round total of 13-under par 275.
Final round scores
271 Jarrod Moseley 65 66 67 73, Peter Lonard 65 68 70 68 (joint winners after squaring one playoff hole in fading light)
274 Stuart Appleby 74 67 66 67
275 Greg Norman 72 67 67 69
276 Greg Chalmers 67 70 69 70
277 Aaron Baddeley 67 65 72 73
278 Adam Scott 72 65 69 72
279 Scott Gardiner 70 72 70 67, Peter O’Malley 72 70 69 68, Greg Turner 66 71 71 71, Adam Le Vesconte 68 68 69 74, Nick O’Hern 70 66 71 72
280 Jason King 71 74 67 68
281 Cameron Percy 69 69 71 72, Brad King 70 68 70 73
SUN CITY (South Africa): South Africa’s Ernie Els carded a comfortable final round nine-under-par Sunday to clinch the US$2m Sun City Challenge with a 21-under-par total of 267, his third victory in four years here.
The “Big Easy” kept his cool after playing a spectacular second-round 65 Friday, putting him eight strokes ahead of Scotsman Colin Montgomerie, who ended second with a 13-under-par.
American Chris Di Marco ended third, 10-under-par.
Final scores:
267 Ernie Els 70 65 69 63
275 Colin Montgomerie 74 69 65 67
278 Chris DiMarco 68 68 72 70
281 Jim Furyk 69 71 72 69, Retief Goosen 68 72 70 71
283 Sergio Garcia 70 73 70 70
284 Nick Price 71 70 73 70
285 Robert Allenby 70 71 74 70, Bob Estes 73 69 72 71, Darren Clarke 72 67 71 75
288 Padraig Harrington 72 70 69 77
289 Michael Campbell 71 71 69 78.—Reuters/AFP
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