– Freddy Schott (-17) has won the Bapco Energies Bahrain Championship after emerging victorious from a highly eventful three-way play-off against Calum Hill (-17) and Patrick Reed (-17). The American was eliminated from the contest on the first play-off hole with a bogey, after sending his tee shot into a bunker and hitting the ball against the lip on his second shot. Meanwhile, the Scotsman went out of bounds on the second play-off hole’s tee shot and then, with the ball already lying three in the fairway rough, hit a tremendous socket and went into the water, leaving the path clear for the young German, who probably couldn’t believe everything that was happening: it was the first time he found himself in such a situation, playing for a DP World Tour tournament until the very last moment, but he found all the planets in the galaxy aligned in his favour.
– Schott, in any case, has shown that he has the makings of a great player. He has been at the top of the leaderboard since Thursday and this time he held his own with the best, closing the week with a remarkable round of 69 in the final group. He hits it very long, is a good putter, has an excellent attitude on the course and, watch out, is only 24 years old. There was something special about this young man: at 20, he won his first professional tournament counting towards the world ranking on the Pro Golf Tour, the following year he won on the HotelPlanner Tour and moved up to the first division, where he has just started his fourth season. It is clear that this victory in the Kingdom of Bahrain marks a turning point in his career, because something tells us that the best is yet to come and that his explosive golf has a lot of room for improvement.
– Hill is this week’s flip side of the coin. He had reached a total of -16 after the first two rounds and in the second 36 holes he was only able to post a score of one under. Even so, he still made it into the play-off, a magnificent opportunity to redeem himself. Today the Scotsman came and went, with a good start that suddenly made him the favourite again (three birdies in the first third of the round), followed by two slip-ups that seemed to sink him definitively (bogey on the 7th hole and double bogey on the 8th)… In the end, Hill managed to come back, as no one else was able to take control, and even stood on the 18th tee, the 72nd hole of the tournament, with the lead, but made a bogey after hitting a mediocre second shot. Sergio García (-16) had tried, but a double bogey on the 14th hole, the last par 5 of the Royal Golf Club, left him out of contention. And also Reed, who stumbled with a bogey on the 16th.
– The return of Sergio to the DP World Tour has been notable, it must be said, reminding us of his best version from the tee and enjoying a good handful of second shots, especially from the second round onwards. Like in the old days, the man from Castellón was the best of the Spaniards.
