Brothers Francesco and Edoardo Molinari edged a dramatic three-way final round tussle with Sweden and Ireland to claim a first World Cup of Golf for Italy by one stroke yesterday.
The first siblings to lift the John Jay Hopkins trophy in the 55 versions of the event, the Italians found their putting touch on the back nine to finish with a four-under-par 68 for a total of 29-under for the US$5.5 million tournament at Mission Hills.
Ireland’s Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell, who had led all week after an opening 58, carded an error-strewn 70 to share second with defending champion Swedes Henrik Stenson and Robert Karlsson, who shot a 69.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“It’s amazing, we don’t really have any words,” 27-year-old Francesco, who will share a check for US$1.7 million with his brother, said in a greenside TV interview.
“It’s been really tough all day, we were playing against some of the best golfers in the world. It was really tough until the last green. But it’s even better when it’s like this,” he said. “It’s really great for Italy and for our family.”
Ireland, who had started the final day foursomes with a one-shot cushion, were drawn into the pack when McIlroy went into the trees with his drive at the third.
The Ulstermen looked to have recovered their nerves, however, with a string of four birdies from the fourth to surge three shots clear.
Sweden, who shot a final-round 63 to win last year, had picked up two shots before dropping their first and only shot of the tournament at the eighth.
Calamity struck for the Irish around the turn, however, when they chalked up two more bogeys at the eighth and 10th holes, the latter when McIlroy missed a two-foot par putt.
“We got lucky in a couple of spots today where it could have really gone wrong for us there and it didn’t,” the world No. 10 said. “So we can’t say we didn’t have the luck with us. We just didn’t make the most of it.”
The Molinaris, meanwhile, had gone through 10 holes at a steady one-under before three successive birdie putts from Francesco, the second a curling beauty from 30 feet, broke the three-way tie then put the Italians ahead by two.
“We were lucky to hole a couple of good putts just after the turn [and] we just had to hang in there and try to finish it off in the last few holes,” Francesco said.
That was going to be easier said than done and the Swedes and Irish cut the lead to one shot with birdies at the 15th before more drama at the 18th.
First Stenson’s long birdie putt tracked around the lip of the hole and out and then Edoardo’s second shot went into a greenside bunker, while the Irish carved out a birdie chance.
World No. 37 Francesco, however, came up with a beautiful wedge to two feet and, when McDowell’s putt came up short, Edoardo had a simple par putt for the championship.
“When I saw the ball going in, it was the sweetest feeling on earth,” said the 28-year-old Edoardo, the former US Amateur champion who has now won four of his last six tournaments.
World No. 7 Stenson, whose partner Karlsson lost a playoff to Eduardo at the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan last week, blamed his poor putting for Sweden’s finish.
“Obviously a little bit of disappointment there but I can’t really hold a 45 foot lip out on the last responsible,” he said. “I had plenty of chances today and I didn’t take them.”
England’s Ian Poulter and Ross Fisher shot a 64 for fourth on 26-under, while Sergio Garcia missed a two-foot putt as Spain finished with a double bogey that left them 22 shots behind the winners in second last place in the 28-team field.
TIGHT GAME: The Detroit Pistons, the NBA’s second-best team, barely outlasted the Washington Wizards, who fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss Cade Cunningham’s triple double, Daniss Jenkins’ three-pointer at the buzzer and Javonte Green’s overtime dunk lifted Detroit past Washington 137-135 on Monday, stretching the Pistons’ win streak to seven games. In an unexpected thriller, the NBA’s second-best team barely outlasted a Wizards club that fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss. “We knew how big this game was for us,” Jenkins said. “We wasn’t going to let nothing stop us from getting this W.” Cunningham made 14-of-45 shots and 16-of-18 free throws for a career-high 46 points, and added 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and two
With a hat-trick on Wednesday, Victor Osimhen moved atop the UEFA Champions League scoring table, with the Nigeria striker netting all three goals in Galatasaray’s 3-0 victory over Ajax in Amsterdam. Osimhen moved to six goals this season in Europe’s elite club competition, one more than Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland. The Istanbul club signed Osimhen to a permanent deal from SSC Napoli in the summer for a record transfer fee in the Turkish League reportedly worth US$86 million. The 26-year-old striker needed less than 20 minutes to complete his first hat-trick in the competition. He headed in the opener in the
LIKE FINE WINE: Thirty-eight-year-old Djokovic won his 101st title of his career in Athens, becoming the oldest tournament winner since Ken Roswell, 44, in 1977 Elena Rybakina on Saturday clinched her biggest title since Wimbledon in 2022, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 7-6 (7/0) at the WTA Finals in Riyadh. The world No. 6 put on yet another serving masterclass and was at her returning best as she became the first Kazakh and the first player representing an Asian country to lift the WTA Finals singles trophy. Having gone 3-0 in round-robin play, Rybakina earned a record US$5.235 million and would finish the year ranked No. 5 in the world. “It’s been an incredible week, I honestly didn’t expect any result, and to go so far,
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
RSS