Marc Leishman picked up his maiden European Tour title on Sunday with a six-stroke victory at the Nedbank Challenge.
The Australian, who started the final round ahead of Henrik Stenson by one shot, carded a five-under 67 to finish on 19-under 269, winning US$1.25 million.
The 32-year-old Leishman’s previous best finish on the tour was at this year’s British Open, when he lost a playoff to Zach Johnson.
Photo: AP
POOR FINISH
Three straight birdies either side of the turn meant that Stenson trailed by two shots with eight holes to play, but the Swede finished poorly to shoot a 72 on the day.
“I knew it was going to be a really tough day, I knew I had to play well,” Leishman said. “I am really pleased that I could play as well as I did and have a little bit of a buffer there at the end.”
The turning point in the final round came at the par-three seventh hole, when Stenson found a bunker and dropped a shot, while Leishman holed a tricky 10-foot putt for birdie.
That opened up a three-shot gap between the duo, and although Stenson pulled one back at the eighth, he was still forced into an aggressive game on the back nine.
While Leishman was faultless from that point on, finishing the tournament with just three bogeys in total, Stenson bogeyed holes 15 and 18.
“Golf is a lot easier when you do not have to make up lost ground, especially on this golf course where there is trouble everywhere,” Leishman said.
The third member of the final group, Jaco van Zyl, fell away badly after starting the day on 10-under.
The South African opened with a bogey before recovering with an excellent approach shot at the second that brought his second eagle of the week. However, he double-bogeyed the sixth to drop out of contention.
BOGEYS
Five further bogeys saw Van Zyl card a six-over 78 to finish tied for 13th.
Van Zyl’s profligacy opened the door for England’s Chris Wood (68) to finish third on nine-under.
Danny Willett of England and Frenchman Victor Dubuisson also shot 68 to share fourth place with South Africa’s Branden Grace (71) and American Robert Streb (73) on eight-under.
Byeong Hun An of South Korea (68) was eighth, while South African Charl Schwartzel (70) and Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee (71) tied for ninth.
New Taipei Kings guard Jeremy Lin on Friday was named the Taiwan Professional Basketball League’s (TPBL) Player of the Month, the first domestic player to win the award, while the Hsinchu Toplus Lioneers are to welcome their third head coach in less than a year. Lin averaged 22 points, 5.4 rebounds and 6.6 assists over five games in October and last month, helping the Kings to second in the standings with a 4-2 record as of Friday. The Kings last night defeated the Lioneers 96-78 to move level with the top-of-the-table Formosa Dreamers (5-2), while in the night game, the New Taipei
TO NO AVAIL: The Denver Nuggets’ Serbian center Nikola Jokic surpassed his 53-point performance in the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix The Washington Wizards withstood a 56-point explosion from Denver star Nikola Jokic to beat the Nuggets 122-113 on Saturday and snap their 16-game NBA losing streak. Jokic, who won his third NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) award last season, posted a career scoring high — surpassing a 53-point performance in game four of the 2023 Western Conference semi-finals against Phoenix and a 50-point regular-season best against Sacramento in 2021. The Serbian big man added 16 rebounds and eight assists, but it was all to no avail as Washington, buoyed by 39 points from Jordan Poole, won for the first time
Taiwan on Wednesday finished with 15 medals at the World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships in Hong Kong, taking home four gold, five silver and six bronze medals across the age group divisions. Taiwan ranked third on the medal table after South Korea with 17 golds and the US with eight golds at the five-day competition. “Your athletes have proven themselves as the best in the world,” World Taekwondo president Choue Chung-won said at the closing ceremony of the martial art contest that was attended by a record 1,727 athletes from around the world. On the first day of the competition at the Hong Kong
Taiwan’s Lin Cheng-jing won a bronze medal in the clean and jerk in the women’s under-49 kg division at the 2024 IWF World Weightlifting Championships in Bahrain on Saturday. Lin won her first medal at a World Weightlifting Championships for lifting 107kg in the clean and jerk in her weight class, 2kg more than Rosegie Ramos of the Philippines. However, Ramos won bronze for the combined lift after topping Lin by 5kg in the snatch. Ri Song-gum of North Korea won gold in the division’s combined lift with a total of 213kg, while Xiang Linxiang of China took silver with
RSS