Sunday, May 04, 2008
Lawrie Reigns In Spain

Peter Lawrie beat Ignacio Garrido at the second play-off hole to win the Spanish Open in Seville.

After getting on the birdie train, with four in his last six holes, Lawrie looked set to win without sudden death until Garrido drained a 30 footer for birdie to tie on 15-under.

Both men birdied the first extra hole, but Garrido then saw his pitch to the same green spin back into the water.

Garrido had been aiming to follow in the footsteps of his father, Antonio, who won the Spanish title in 1972.

But the wind was knocked out of his sails on the first play-off hole when Lawrie made a 25ft putt to match his birdie three.

Lawrie's victory makes it three Irish wins in a row on the European Tour after Darren Clarke's Asian Open success and Damien McGrane's China Open victory.

"It's nice to keep it in the Irish contingent," he said. "It spurs you on - you play practice rounds with them and think 'why can't I do it'?"


Paul shows the world the international sign for "Fancy a Guiness?"
  
Five years ago, the 34-year-old lost a play-off for the same title to England's Kenneth Ferrie.

That was the closest he had come to victory in 174 previous tournaments, while Garrido became a runner-up in the event for the third time in his career.

As a result of his win, Lawrie moves from 88th to 12th on the Order of Merit and into 19th spot in the European Ryder Cup race.

Meanwhile GP diarist Danny Willet came a respectable tied 7th after rounds of 73, 70, 64 and 71 in his second tour event.      




5/4/2008 2:25:09 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #  Comments [0] 

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