Despite some hard charging over the weekend by Haotong Li ( 62 69 -17) and young Tom Lewis ( 62 65 -16) and Australian, Min Woo Lee ( 63 63 -15) world #3, Dustin Johnson was the best of the bunch at this inaugural Saudi International with rounds of 68 61 65 67 -19 good for a 2 shot victory
His win saved some blushes for the the wealthy organizers as world #1 Justin Rose missed the cut while #2 Brooks Keopka T57 and new honorary member for life Patrick Reed was 56th. Another of the marquee players Bryson DeChambeau fought back to finish T6 at -11 68 68 68 65.
It was Johnson's 6th European Tour win, and I thought his bogey putt after going in the water at the 16th to drop just one stroke to rising Chinese star Li was the turning point.
"It feels really good .Any time you can win a professional golf tournament, no matter where it is in the world, it's a big win. I'm honoured to be the champion and I'm very pleased with the win. The things that I've been working on are working and I've still got a lot of room for improvement. I'm very pleased with where the game is at."
"I've got a lot of confidence in what I'm doing and I feel like I'm hitting a lot of really good golf shots. So misses are starting to get better and I'm not making as many mistakes, even though I did on 16. But for the most part, that was about the only really bad shot I hit this week."
"So I'm pleased with where the game's at, and to get a win here, it's a big win, gives me a lot of confidence going for the rest of the year"
It was a good fortnight for international golf with two Americans, DeChambeau winning last week in Dubai and DJ in Saudi today. The more Americans get out of their comfort zones in the States like this is good for golf and is long overdue."I've got a lot of confidence in what I'm doing and I feel like I'm hitting a lot of really good golf shots. So misses are starting to get better and I'm not making as many mistakes, even though I did on 16. But for the most part, that was about the only really bad shot I hit this week."
"So I'm pleased with where the game's at, and to get a win here, it's a big win, gives me a lot of confidence going for the rest of the year"
This tour heads down under to Victoria and Perth Australia for 2 weeks, then its a WGC in Mexico for the top players, before they return to the Middle East in Oman and Qatar. Like I said earlier, 50 different countries on this schedule !
Bryan Angus
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