Peter Fowler claimed his first European Senior Tour victory for more than two years with a remarkable turnaround in the French Riviera Masters, coming from four shots back at the start of the final round to win by three strokes at Terre Blanche Hotel Spa Golf Resort.<\/p>\n
The Australian took little time in overturning Andrew Oldcorn\u2019s overnight advantage, catching the Scot by the sixth hole after Oldcorn started with three bogeys in his opening five holes.
\nFowler began with three pars and a birdie on the fourth, before both players picked up a shot the sixth hole to share the lead on seven under par.<\/p>\n
However, contrasting fortunes were ahead for the pair as Fowler posted back-to-back birdies on the next two holes, while Oldcorn ran into trouble on the eighth, carding a double bogey six after first finding the fairway bunker and then obstruction behind a tree. <\/p>\n
That meant an eight shot swing in just eight holes and thereafter Fowler exerted his control over the tournament, birdieing the tenth and 11th holes to give himself breathing space at the top of the leaderboard.<\/p>\n
He adopted a more cautious approach on the back nine in order to protect his advantage, carding seven consecutive pars on the way in for a six under par round of 66 and a winning total of 11 under par 205.<\/p>\n
\u201cWins aren\u2019t easy to come by so it is always special to get one,\u201d said the 54 year old, who has battled back and knee problems over the past four seasons. \u201cI\u2019ve worked hard for this so it feels good.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is hard to win because there are so many good players on this Tour, like Andrew. I thought he was going to win today as it is hard to pull back a four stroke lead, so I just tried to play my own game.<\/p>\n
\u201cFortunately, I got a good run on the front nine and then Andy struggled so I managed to get ahead. It\u2019s never a foregone conclusion \u2013 I\u2019ve only had three wins on this Tour, but I\u2019ve worked so hard and it\u2019s nice to take this chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fowler\u2019s last Senior Tour triumph came at the Bad Ragaz PGA Seniors Open in 2011, the year he topped the Order of Merit courtesy of two victories and 11 other top ten finishes.<\/p>\n
After jumping from 11th to second on this year\u2019s money list, the 54 year old now has a realistic chance of repeating that success and reclaiming the John Jacobs Trophy he won two years ago.<\/p>\n
The first prize of \u20ac60,000 means he is now just \u20ac11,929 behind Englishman Paul Wesselingh on the Order of Merit with four events remaining.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaul has been playing very well all year and very consistently, so it would take some doing to catch him, but I\u2019m really happy that I\u2019ve got this win and moved up close to him,\u201d he said.
\nTo his credit, Oldcorn battled back from his difficult start, carding birdies on the ninth, 11th and 17th holes to sign for a one over par 73.<\/p>\n
That was good enough for a share of second position \u2013 his second joint runner up finish in three weeks after closing 61 in the WINSTONgolf Senior Open – alongside Spaniard Santiago Luna, winner of the SSE Scottish Senior Open last month, who posted a superb 66 to also finish eight under par. <\/p>\n
For Oldcorn, it was further frustration at the hands of Fowler, having finished runner up to him for all three of the Australian\u2019s Senior Tour wins. He has also been second seven times now overall on the Senior Tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sick of the sight of Peter,\u201d joked Oldcorn. \u201cThat\u2019s all three times now that he has won and I\u2019ve finished second. I shot myself in foot early on. I was too tentative at the beginning, exactly what I thought I wouldn\u2019t be, and I made a mistake on the very first hole.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was hard to recover from that, as well as Peter played. There was an eight shot swing on the front nine. I dug in there and kept going but I struggled with my swing. I\u2019m hugely disappointed. Peter played well and he never missed a putt all day, so all credit to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Japan\u2019s Katsuyoshi Tomori fired a seven under par 65 to finish fourth on seven under par, while former World Number One and Masters Champion Ian Woosnam closed with a 67 to finish in a share of fifth position with England\u2019s Philip Golding (70) and New Zealand\u2019s Greg Turner (69) on six under par. <\/p>\n
Photo: Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peter Fowler claimed his first European Senior Tour victory for more than two years with a remarkable turnaround in the French Riviera Masters, coming from four shots back at the start of the final round to win by three strokes at Terre Blanche Hotel Spa Golf Resort. The Australian took little time in overturning Andrew […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,53],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-showcase"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}