By Rizwan Rehmat
DOHA: Paul Lawrie’s loss was Branden Grace’s gain.
Overnight leader Lawrie yesterday imploded in the final round at the $2.5m Qatar Masters where defending champion Grace remained steady to nail his second Mother of Pearl Trophy at the Doha Golf Club (DGC).
Two-time champion Lawrie carded double bogeys on holes 8 and 14 and went down the leaderboard with another four sluggish bogeys to lose the advantage he had enjoyed over the last two rounds.
Lawrie - champion in 1999 and 2012 - finished with a sorry card of 6 over par 78 as the Scotsman quickly disappeared from the top golfers’ list at DGC.
On the contrary, Grace fired a 69 for an overall card of 14 under par 274 to claim the top prize of $416,660 at a windswept DGC where Spain’s Rafa Cabrera-Bello and Denmark’s Thorbjorn Olesen shared the second spot with overall scores of 12 under par 276.
Welshman Bradley Dredge (69) produced a late surge to share the third spot with overall scores of 11 under par 277.
English pair Andrew Johnston (70) and Lee Slattery (70) shared the fourth spot with Dredge.
Former champion Sergio Garcia of Spain fired a round of 70 to finish 8 under par 280 and was tied for the seventh spot with a group of five other golfers that included title favourite and joint round one leader Louis Oosthuizen (71) of South Africa.
Grace yesterday stuttered with a bogey on the 452-yard hole 5 but the 27-year-old South African recovered with on holes 1, 6, 10 and 18.
With Lawrie no longer a threat, Grace missed a birdie putt on hole 17.
The stockily-built South African could barely find the words to describe his feelings.
“I’m pretty much at a loss for words. It’s a big thing to come to a week defending. You’ve got a lot more pressure and a lot more things going on that week,” Grace said.
“But to get the first proper defence under the belt is something great and something I’ve been dreaming of.
“There’s no better place to do it than Qatar. This is really one of my biggest wins to date last year and I think this is just going to push it up even higher,” Grace said.
Grace said his battle with Cabrera-Bello and Olesen was intense with the title actually decided on the last hole.
“Well, 16 I thought was a key hole. I knew Thorbjorn, he was playing well. He was hitting some great shots. He also didn’t miss a lot of shots the whole day,” Grace recalled.
“It’s a really tough grind out there. 16, he hit a great tee shot. When he said -- I think he said “get close,” and that was pretty much a little deja vu there when he said it, me saying it last year.
“When he said that, I thought he had a good chance. I thought he was over, with no applause and I knew anything long was a tough up-and-down.
“(I) tried to give myself a chance and I didn’t. And when he missed that putt, then I knew, okay, now it’s just trying to hold on and have a decent finish.
“17 is not one of those holes where you can really attack the pin. It’s so tucked left. The wind howling off the left, it’s really hard to actually hit it close. I actually hit a great shot there, which I thought I made a birdie actually. I hit a great putt which didn’t go in.
“I knew there was quite a bit of guys. Rafa was up there. He’s a long hitter. He can definitely reach that 18th in two. Just fortunate for me that the birdie was enough.
“I didn’t really hear a big crowd for Rafa so I had to take it on. A 3-iron is not the easiest club in the bag to hit, and I just flushed it straight at the middle of the green and that took care of the rest,” Grace said.
Olesen had just two birdies - on holes 4 and 18 - but got bogged down by a bogey on 8 to finish his final round with a card of 71 for an overall score of 12 under par 276.
The Danish said he was pleased with his performance in Qatar.
“If you take it the start of the week, tied second is pretty good,” Olesen said.
“Obviously I had a lot of chances today but nothing really went in. I missed that short putt on 10 which hurt a lot. I never really got the pace on the greens.
“(I) had a few good lines but then they were short. When I got it to the hole, it was not a good line. So it was just a little off there around the greens,” he said.
Cabrera-Bello, who was tied for the second with Olesen, finished his final round with three-back-to-back birdies for a card of 70 for overall score of 12 under par 276.
The Spaniard fired a birdie on the first hole but lost ground with a double bogey on hole 8.
“Yes, I started good today. Made a bad mistake on 8, and then it was hard to get birdies. I had a very strong finish and obviously very pleased with the result,” Cabrera-Bello said.
“No, it’s just a tough day,” Cabrera-Bello said when asked about the double bogey on hole 8. “It was common to make mistakes. Many of the guys out there were also making mistakes, so I told myself that there was still a lot to play for,” he said.
Garcia, winner in 2014, said it was a grind at DGC this week.
“Really happy with the first two days. Quite disappointed with the last two,” Garcia said after carding a 70 yesterday.
“I didn’t feel like I played well enough -- well at all, pretty much, on the last two days. It’s a bit of a shame because I felt really, really comfortable the first two days. I felt like I hit the ball really well, but the way I hit the ball on the weekend, it didn’t feel that great,” he said.
The Peninsula
