Around The World
Forty-two-year-old Thomas Bjorn won for the 14th time on the European Tour and for the second time in three years ar Crans-sur-Sierre, claiming the European Masters in a playoff over Scotland’s Craig Lee. Prior to Sunday’s final round high in the Swiss Alps, the tournament’s main story was the 36-year-old Lee, a journeyman from Stirling who electrified the event by carding a third-round 61 that included birdies at nine of his first 10 holes, and moved him from a tie for 15th into a two-stroke lead over Bjorn, France’s Victor DuBuisson and Spain’s Alejandro Canizares. Playing in air which was rarified in more ways than one, Lee held together admirably on Sunday, birdieing the par-5 opener, then adding three more birdies on the back nine for a blemish-free round of 67. For their parts, both DuBuisson and Canizares fared similarly well, with DuBuisson carding seven birdies en route to a closing 66 (and solo third) and Canizares taking fourth off of a 67 which began eagle-birdie-birdie. But it was Bjorn, who claimed the title here in 2011 after closing with a 62, who made Sunday’s most sustained move, initially going out in five-under-par 31 to take a two stroke lead. Lee would draw even with his birdies at the 12th and the 14th, and both players would add birdies at the short par-5 15th. Following a 30-minute fog delay in the late going, both men missed 20-foot birdie putts to win outright at the last (Lee’s agonizingly lipping out) before Bjorn clinched the title with a 12-foot birdie putt at the first extra hole………………Returning to his native circuit after logging five straight top-25 finishes on the PGA Tour (where he will toil full-time in 2014), Hideki Matsuyama reasserted his domestic dominance by winning for the third time in nine 2013 starts, capturing the Fujisankei Classic in a three-way playoff. The 21-year-old Matsuyama appeared to have matters well in hand after a Saturday 66 gave him a four-stroke 54-hole lead but an up-and-down final nine on Sunday (which included two bogeys and a double bogey) allowed the field to move closer, and an ill-timed bogey at the last dresw him even with last week’s winner, South Korea’s Sung-Joon Park. Japan Tour veteran Hideto Tanihara joined them with a birdie at the 18th and it was off to a playoff, where all three men parred the 18th on the first go-round before Matsuyama won it with a birdie (after driving into a fairway bunker) on the second.