Perez Full Of Praise For Scotland & Home of Golf Golfers After Banking Abu Dhabi HSBC Title.

1 year ago by Comments Off on Perez Full Of Praise For Scotland & Home of Golf Golfers After Banking Abu Dhabi HSBC Title.

.. Yas Links, Abu Dhabi

Edinburgh-based Frenchman Victor Perez singled out in glowing terms living in golf-mad Scotland as helpful in capturing the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.

Despite a near-disaster incident down the last, Perez picked-up a seventh pro victory and a third DP World Tour title posting a closing 66 to win by a shot at 18-under-par on the Yas Links course.

Perez, and a member of last week’s winning European Hero Cup side, burst from the blocks on the final day of the record-setting $UDS 9m event, with two opening bogeys and then two more, at the sixth and seventh holes.

Edinburgh-based Victor Perez full of praise living in golf-mad Scotland

Perez, who has lived in the Home of Golf for some six years and moving-in with his Scottish-born girlfriend while he practices at the Renaissance Club and venue later this year for the Genesis Scottish Open, then moved into a two -shot lead at 18-under with back to back birdies, and for a third time in his round, before a bogey on 14 but then managing a birdie at 15.

He then holed one of the shots of the career holing a 22-yard chip shot for birdie after a poor tee shot from the par-3 17th.  It had the 30-year-old a two-shot and surely victory.

However, his final tee shot found a fairway bunker and his call coming to rest in what could have been a poorly raked lie but with Perez’s ball soaring high and landing on the downside of the water hazard running all the way down the final hole.

In the end, Perez found the fairway with his third, put his fourth on the green and two-putted for winning by a shot at 18-under with a bogey ‘6’ but afterwards laughed off thoughts of now being Scotland’s leading golfer.

Perez said: “No, I don’t think of it like that (laughing) but it’s been fantastic living in Scotland, as I’ve done for six years now.

“I’ve enjoyed very much the golfing culture in the UK and particularly in Scotland as it’s helped my game so much.  People seem to live and breathe golf in Scotland while they are always supportive in wanting you to do well.

“They have a great respect for the game which is quite rare in sport now. It’s got that way now that people in Scotland now know who I am and they will come up to me and congratulate me on what I am doing on the golf course”.

Craigielaw’s Grant Forrest finished the leading Scot posting a closing 72 to share 10th place at 12-under

He said: “I didn’t play well as I didn’t have my best stuff at all. I hung in there, but I didn’t play the par-5s well, especially on the front nine. I played them in one-over from the middle of the fairway with an 8-iron and a 5-iron. That was at least two shots gone there.

“My long putting was good and my short game was good on the back nine, but the long game wasn’t there.”

The effort earned the newly-engaged Scot a cheque for Euro 137,534

MEANTIME

Scotland’s David Drysdale has brilliantly secured his 2023 Asian Tour card, holing a four-foot birdie putt at the 90th hole on day five and the final round of the Asian Tour Q-School in Thailand.

Drysdale entered qualifying after the disappointment of losing his DP World Tour card at the end of the 2022 season, and while he would have been afforded a limited number of starts this year, he and caddying wife, Vicky discussed the matter and decided to give the Asian Tour a shot.

And after rounds 69, 69, 68, 73 and a closing 67, where he landed a superb gap-wedge second at the par-4 ninth hole, that he was playing as his last to just four-feet, Drysdale stepped-up to hole the birdie putt.

It was among six birdies over his closing round that officially handed the proud Scot 29th place, and with leading 35 now exempt for the 2023 Asian Tour

He said:  “It’s brilliant to win through for him to earn his Asian Tour card, so we’re naturally delighted.  It’s been a gruelling spell but the goal in coming out here to Thailand was to earn my card, so it’s mission accomplished.

“I played really well today, in the pretty hot conditions as you get out here, so to produce a good round like I did, and under a little bit of pressure as I was, is very rewarding.

“It’s going to make the flight back home to Scotland that much more comfortable”.



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