by England’s Dan Bradbury emerged from a very crowded leaderboard to win his second DP World Tour title at the FedEx French Open.
In total, 11 players were tied for the lead in the final stages of the Golf National, but it was Bradbury who made the decisive move with a hat-trick of birdies from the 14th.
The 25-year-old from Wakefield, who won the Joburg Open in November 2022 in only his third start, kept his cool to tie the fearsome 18th for a closing 66, setting a clubhouse target of 16 under par.
England’s Sam Bairstow and Denmark’s Thorbjorn Olesen, who missed good birdie opportunities at the 16th and 17th, failed to make the final birdie to force a play-off, with Germany’s Yannik Paul and Denmark’s Jeff Winther having already finished at 15 cents.
Bradbury, who started the day two shots behind Swede Jesper Svensson, admitted he got lucky on the 15th hole, where his shot stopped inches from the water.
“I’ve obviously been lucky off the tee, but I feel like I’ve had a few bad breaks this week, so it’s pretty nice to get a good one there,” Bradbury said at Sky Sports.
“And then I pushed him [the second shot]I pushed it straight out and luckily it stayed in place [the green]. Make a horrible putt and sometimes you just need it.
“Once I did that, I was like, ‘This doesn’t sound like my day, but there’s definitely something going on for me.’
Bradbury started the week ranked 98th in the Race to Dubai, but will move up to 25th, making him eligible for the season-ending play-offs in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
“The goal this week was to make the cut so I wouldn’t have to go to Korea and try to keep my card, to be honest with you, so hearing that sounds pretty good,” he added.
“I guess I’ll think about flights to Dubai then.”
Winther had been the first player to finish at 15 under after a superb closing 64, the 36-year-old ultimately having to regret missing from inside five feet for birdie on the par-five ninth.
“It was easy,” Winther said. “I was trying to put golf aside a little, to make fun of my caddy a little, and he was making fun of me. It’s a lot easier, isn’t it?
“The focus was fairways and greens and hopefully my putter works. It worked great today. Just one [missed] putt on nine, but I can’t really complain about that, I completely misread it.
“Otherwise, I played really solid. I got away with the mistakes I made. I made a crazy birdie out of five. It should have been a bogey or a double but turned out to be a birdie.
“Very, very happy this weekend to not have a bogey, so I can’t complain.”
