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Lower than a yr after he practically retired from golf, Li Haotong achieved his third profession European tour win and first since 2018 on the BMW Worldwide Open.
Li sank to the bottom with loud exclamations of pleasure and reduction on Sunday after beating Thomas Pieters with a 40-foot birdie putt on the primary playoff gap. It was an enormous turnaround from 2021, when he solely made the lower at two European tour occasions all yr and thought of leaving the game behind.
“Ten months in the past … I simply actually determined to give up golf. One way or the other, the place I’m now, it is arduous to explain,” Li mentioned. “I had no thought I may win this playoff. Fortunately, issues occurred for me once more.”
Li had led the event since a course record-equalling spherical of 10-under 62 on the opening day. Nevertheless, his 2-under 70 Sunday was his worst of the event and Li regarded like he may need blown his probability when a bogey on the fifteenth left him in a three-way tie with Pieters and New Zealand’s Ryan Fox.
An emblem of Li’s struggles was the par-five No.6, the place he had bogey after eagles in his earlier three rounds
Li recovered with birdies on the sixteenth and seventeenth however missed a birdie putt which may have gained the event on the ultimate gap.
Li then gained a playoff for the primary time in his profession with a birdie as Pieters didn’t sink a 10-foot putt.
The event happened amid simmering pressure over gamers signing with the breakaway Saudi-backed LIV collection.
Not like the PGA Tour, the European tour stopped in need of issuing indefinite suspensions from all its competitions even when gamers took half within the profitable inaugural LIV event in England this month, nevertheless it did problem fines Friday and suspended them from three tournaments co-sanctioned with the PGA, together with the Scottish Open.
Ten golfers who performed the primary LIV occasion have been within the subject in Munich, with Pablo Larrazabal the perfect performer, ending 5 strokes off the lead, and Louis Oosthuizen one stroke additional again.
Two-time main winner Martin Kaymer performed this week and mentioned the European tour’s warning of future punishment for golfers who proceed with LIV will not cease him taking part in extra Saudi-run tournaments.
“I am going to play all the LIV tournaments till the tip of the yr and let’s examine how the sanctions look once more after that,” Kaymer mentioned in feedback reported by Germany’s dpa company. “You do not wish to get some form of sanctions every week since you’ve performed a event some other place.”
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