Gregory Bourdy has stolen a march on his rivals in the race to qualify for the Ryder Cup after winning the Wales Open yesterday with a stunning finish at Celtic Manor.
The Frenchman birdied the last three holes to capture his fourth European Tour title in spectacular fashion after it had seemed American Peter Uihlein would land the £300,000 top prize.
Uihlein took a three-shot advantage into the final round, but the 24-year-old was unable to sustain his run and a bogey at the last handed Bourdy the title by two shots when he posted a 67 to his rival's 72.
The 31-year-old from Bordeaux was forced to confess that he had not even been aware that the Welsh event was the first of the Ryder Cup qualifying tournaments until after he had completed his first round.
"Usually the first one is the Omega European Masters then someone told me it was here," Bourdy said after learning that he is 300,000 points to the good. "I hope Paul [McGinley] was watching me.
"Playing in the Ryder Cup would be the greatest achievement of my career. I have been playing golf since the age of three and I have always dreamed of winning majors and playing in the Ryder Cup.
"I have watched it many times and I have my chance now after getting off to a great start. It will still be very tough with so many great players but I especially want to be in the team in France in 2018."
Bourdy sank putts from 35 feet, 15 feet and 30 feet, revealing afterwards: "I changed my putter at the start of the week and I began holing putts. I've never finished like that in my career."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article