Billy Horschel (-20) kicked off the fourth and final round of the BMW PGA Championship today by sinking a birdie from about twelve meters. And he finished by sinking another one, on the second playoff hole, this time for an eagle, from about eight meters…
Seen this way, it must be agreed that the Florida native has won at Wentworth for the second time in his career simply because he had to win. There is no other option when a great player is so fine on the greens. Billy, in fact, has dominated all the putting statistics among those who have played this week’s four rounds, with a beastly average of 25.25 putts per round.
Here the summary or the chronicle could be closed, but such a brief analysis would taste little. Among other things, because the last rival he had to overcome, Rory McIlroy (-20), has also been very accurate with the putter in his hands. Similarly, the Northern Irishman was putting for an eagle on that second playoff hole, although his ball only managed to flirt with the edge of the hole, while the American’s ball went in gently and right in the middle.
Before, on the first playoff hole, Thriston Lawrence (-20), the South African player who already has his 2025 PGA Tour card almost assured, precisely through the DP World Tour, and who is going to have a good career on the other side of the Atlantic, had already been left out of the fight. Lawrence was close to surprising the main favourites with a great final round of 65 strokes, but he finished the 72-hole tournament without making a birdie on either of the final two par 5s, holes 17 and 18, and then, on the first playoff hole, he missed the tee shot and ended up making a bogey.
The truth about Rory deserves a separate mention. Second last week in his homeland, Northern Ireland, and second this week, via a playoff, at Wentworth. Rory can never leave you indifferent: on hole 17 and 71 of the tournament he pulled out a sidereal eagle, in total, during the four rounds, only three eagles have been made on this tricky par 5, and he was the one to make one when he was between a rock and a hard place in the fight for victory. Afterwards, it’s true, he didn’t manage to make one more birdie on the 18th that would have given him the victory after grossly missing the second shot from the middle of the fairway… Anyway, if you lose a tournament with an eagle of such a bill on the second playoff hole, you can’t blame yourself for much. And no one should blame him at all. How much a tournament gains when he is there. It’s like day and night. How much his mere presence weighs. We will still see him this year in three more events: Alfred Dunhill, Abu Dhabi and the Dubai Final, where he is very likely to win the European circuit ranking for the sixth time, as a culmination to a year that no one in the short term, unfortunately, will have the lucidity to qualify as a great year.
It was not Matteo Manassero‘s (-17) day, who today started with a three-stroke lead and signed a card over par. But the Italian was not cursing in the corners either. He keeps adding up and keeps facing victory on Sundays in the big events. Next week he will be at the Spanish Open, who knows if it won’t be in Madrid…
Adrián Otaegui (-11) has been the best of a Spanish Armada that has not put anyone up this week. The San Sebastian native, in any case, handed in an excellent 66 today to gain more than twenty positions in the table and finish 18th. It’s a pity those two rather short birdie putts he missed on holes 17 and 18 that could have taken him to the final top ten. If we talk about the Armada, it is only necessary to assure that, in a few days, at the Madrid Country Club, surely another rooster will sing…
