A veteran of a thousand golf wars, 37 years old and 17 seasons as a professional. Ladies and gentlemen, the champion of the Delhi Challenge, John Parry.
The Englishman is one of those golf workers who fights week after week out of the spotlight. A scrappy player and one of those ‘elevator’ competitors who keep battling, moving up and down between the DP World Tour and the Challenge Tour. Parry finds victory again fourteen years after he did so in 2010. He sealed his last triumph almost a decade and a half ago on the DP World Tour in Paris, precisely in his debut season. It was his first victory in the top continental division. It was the last. A week later he would finish third in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. Since then, almost 200 tournaments on the European Circuit and he has not stepped onto the podium of a tournament on the DP World Tour again.
A year earlier, in 2009, Parry had already tasted victory on the Challenge Tour by winning, also in France, the Allianz Golf. He confirmed the good suspicions there were about this English player who had shone as an amateur. In Spain we got to know him early as he won the King’s Cup in 2007. That same year he played on the Great Britain and Ireland team alongside Rory McIlroy in the Walker Cup. He showed promise. Since his victory on the European Circuit, the claws of golf have been catching him and since 2011, in none of the eight seasons he has been on the DP World Tour has he ended the year within the top 70. A true worker who has known how to fight and fight to stay attached to the elite. Honours.
Today, John is smiling again. He is a champion again. Let him enjoy his moment. He probably had resigned himself, perhaps he had the conviction that he would win again, what we do know for sure is that these types of players are the ones who magnify this sport. The fight and courage are not up for discussion. Anyone else might have given up.
Parry was not among the clear title candidates today, he started three strokes behind the leaders, but he knew that it was time, that the wait was over. Today he wins big, the Englishman must have said to himself. He flew low at the Classic Golf & Country Club in Hayranan and handed in the best card of the day at the clubhouse with 65 strokes. That’s how you win a tournament. The Englishman beat the trio made up of Jack Senior, Joshua Greenville-Wood and Chris Paisley by one stroke. Parry, by the way, rises to the top of the ranking in the Road to Mallorca.
In fifth place, two young French promises have tied. Martin Couvra could not finish the job and had to settle for fifth place. The big ‘surprise’ of the tournament is Oihan Guillamoundeguy who at just 19 years old achieves his first top 5 on the circuit. Two victories last year on the Alps Tour secured him a card on the Challenge and at just 16 years old he made the cut at the Cazoo Open de France on the DP World Tour. Watch out for this young man.
Tough day for the three Spaniards who started the day within the top twenty of the tournament and were looking for a result that would boost them in the table. Víctor Pastor (-11), Joel Moscatel and Lucas Vacarisas (-10) all played at par and lost positions in the final classification. The Andalusian finished thirtieth while the two Catalans tied in thirty-sixth position. Good week for them, although there is probably a lingering taste that a good final round would have given them a good haul of points. With this result, Pastor remains within the top twenty of the year, nineteenth position, and therefore within the cards that give access to the DP World Tour.
The only Spaniard who played under par today was Javi Sainz (-8) who with a card of 71 strokes closed the tournament in 44th place.
Long live soldier Parry. Let’s toast.
