Tag: 2021 BMW PGA Championship

Shane Lowry birdies the last to win BMW PGA Championship, beats Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm by one stroke

“I don’t know how that missed.”

Shane Lowry gave an embrace to his friend Rory McIlroy as the latter strolled into the scoring tent.

“I don’t know how that missed,” Lowry said to McIlroy, referencing the 2022 FedEx Cup Champion’s eagle putt on the 18th hole at Wentworth Club in Surrey, England. Lowry missed an eagle only minutes earlier, instead tapping in for birdie to take the clubhouse lead at 17 under.

McIlroy needed his putt to tie. It crept ever so close to the hole and came to a stop, seemingly staring inside the cup from the right edge. He knocked in the birdie, but it wasn’t enough.

Lowry was victorious after a brilliant final round 7-under 65 to capture the 2022 BMW PGA Championship, the DP World Tour’s flagship event. Lowry was two shots back when the day began of overnight leaders Viktor Hovland and Soren Kjeldsen, but his birdie on the final hole, a par 5, gave him a one-shot victory over McIlroy and Jon Rahm, whose 8-under 29 (with a bogey) on the back nine Sunday propelled him into the clubhouse lead for the majority of the day.

2022 BMW PGA Championship
Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland reacts after their putt for an eagle on the 18th hole stops short during the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth Golf Club on September 11, 2022 in Virginia Water, England. (Photo by Warren Little/Getty Images)

“It has been a good year. I’ve felt like I’ve been close a few times,” Lowry said. “I love it here. I’ve contended here in the past. I’m so happy.”

Rahm shot a 10-under 62 in the final round, but he had five birdies and two eagles on his back nine to take the clubhouse lead until Lowry’s closing birdie. Lowry, meanwhile, eagled the par-5 fourth hole to begin his day and then made five birdies on the way in.

Lowry played all three rounds without recording a bogey. He became the first Irishman, and second all-time, to win the BMW PGA Championship since Harry Bradshaw in 1958.

McIlroy, meanwhile, shot 5 under in the final round to finish at 16 under for the tournament, which was reduced to 54 holes following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. He also narrowly missed a birdie on the par-5 17th hole that would’ve gotten him to 16 under and in a tie for the lead.

McIlroy was in the fairway on the 18th when Lowry carded his birdie to take the outright lead. He knew an eagle was needed, hitting a 4-iron from 242 yards to 23 feet, 6 inches.

Yet his eagle putt came up just short, giving his good friend Lowry his first victory since the Open Championship at Royal Portrush in 2019.

Talor Gooch finished solo fourth at 15 under. Before the leaders teed off, Patrick Reed completed a 9-under 63 to take the clubhouse lead at 14 under, but he finished in a tie for fifth with Hovland, Kjeldsen and Thomas Detry.

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‘Motivated’ Billy Horschel wins European Tour’s BMW Championship. Should he be 13th man for U.S. Ryder Cup if Brooks Koepka can’t play?

Billy Horschel used a Ryder Cup snub as motivation to win the BMW PGA Championship in Surrey, England.

Billy Horschel was “gutted” that he didn’t get a call from U.S. Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker earlier this week. He used the snub as motivation and fired a final-round 7-under 65 at Wentworth Golf Club to win the BMW PGA Championship in Surrey, England.

In doing so, Horschel became the first American to win Europe’s flagship event since Arnold Palmer and the first American to win any of the European Tour’s Rolex Series events.

It was also a throwback to 2014 when Horschel won the BMW Championship and Tour Championship after the U.S. Ryder Cup team’s captain choices already were selected. Despite a victory at the WGC Dell Match Play earlier this year and a fiery personality that seems well-suited for international team competition, Horschel was overlooked as one of Steve Stricker’s six captain’s picks. (He took Scottie Scheffler, who Horschel defeated in the finals of the Match Play instead.) Asked if he thought he might get a call from Stricker to replace the injured Brooks Koepka if he is unable to play, Horschel said, “I don’t know. It sucks not making the team. I didn’t play well enough after winning the Match Play to warrant a pick or to be an automatic selection.

“I was a little gutted that I didn’t get the call this week. I didn’t think the call was going to say I made the team, but I was a little gutted I didn’t get a call to say, hey, you didn’t make the team. In my mind, I thought I would at least get that. It was a little more motivation for that.”

Horschel birdied the 18th hole to edge England’s Laurie Canter, Wales’s Jamie Donaldson and Thailand’s Kiradech Aphibarnat.

“It’s pretty special,” Horschel said. “I grew up watching this event on TV. I don’t say this lightly, this event goes hand in hand with our Players Championship so it’s nice to check that box off.”

Horschel, 34, played his final 29 holes bogey-free and made birdies on five of his first 12 holes on Sunday. But up ahead, Aphibarnat was torching Wentworth to the tune of 9 under for his first 16 holes, which included an 18-foot made putt for eagle at 12 and pumped his right fist.

Thailand’s John Daly, as he’s called, led by three strokes over Horschel at the time. But he pulled his second shot at the par-5 17th into a hedge, had to take an unplayable and made bogey to shoot 64 and grab the clubhouse lead at 18 under. Donaldson birdied the final two holes for 66 but missed his eagle putt at the last and finished one short. Canter, who was attempting to become the first Englishman to get his first European Tour victory at Europe’s flagship event since Tony Jacklin in 1972, made par at the final two holes, a pair of par 5s, to close in 67.

Horschel burned the left edge on a 23-foot birdie putt at 17 to break the deadlock at 18 under, but wedged from 91 yards to a foot for the decisive birdie at 18 to finish at 19-under 269.

Horschel, who has six PGA Tour career wins, won for the first time in Europe and assumed the lead in the Race to Dubai.

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