Continental Europe ended a 13 year wait for victory in the Seve Trophy by Golf+ after defeating Great Britain & Ireland 15-13 in a thrilling encounter at Saint -Nom-La-Bret\u00e8che, on the outskirts of Paris.<\/p>\n
Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Olaz\u00e1bal\u2019s side won an absorbing singles session 6-4, with Francesco Molinari taking the anchor role as he did for the Spaniard in The Ryder Cup at Medinah last year.<\/p>\n
On that occasion he claimed a half point against Tiger Woods as Europe defeated the United States, but the Italian went one better against Chris Wood, holing a six foot birdie putt on the 16th to overcome the Englishman 3&2.<\/p>\n
That sealed Continental Europe\u2019s first victory in the biennial competition since the inaugural contest in 2000, and also ended Great Britain & Ireland\u2019s winning streak of six in a row.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis feels great for us,\u201d said Molinari. \u201cI played the last two before this, and it’s never good to finish on the losing side, so we tried really hard. It was funny yesterday when Olaz\u00e1bal was reading the list, I kind of knew I was going to be last, but I was waiting every name, hoping to hear mine, and I didn’t until the tenth spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to stay away from the leaderboards as much as possible today, but then obviously you see everyone coming up to your match and watching you. I tried not to do the maths, but I realised that I needed a half a point, so I wasn’t going to hit my putt too firm obviously on the 16th. But it’s good to finish in style.\u201d<\/p>\n
Great Britain & Ireland captain Sam Torrance had been forced to send his team out without the injured Simon Khan, whose back problem meant he could not face Molinari in the original final match up.<\/p>\n
Thomas Bj\u00f6rn was the man to miss out in turn for the Continental European\u2019s, the Dane having gallantly volunteered to be \u2018in the envelope\u2019 as the nominated player in order to allow some of his younger teammates chance to gain more match play experience.<\/p>\n
Those youngsters duly delivered, with home favourite Gr\u00e9gory Bourdy becoming the first player in the tournament\u2019s history to win five points out of five, some sumptuous iron play helping him overcome Scott Jamieson 4 and 3.<\/p>\n
Joost Luiten had been chasing the same record but Tommy Fleetwood upset the form book to claim his first point of the week with a 3 and 2 victory over the Dutchman.<\/p>\n
Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts, another of Olaz\u00e1bal\u2019s heroes from Medinah, held his nerve from five feet on the final green to see off Paul Casey following an epic duel, while Gonzalo Fernandez-Casta\u00f1o halved the opening singles match with Jamie Donaldson.<\/p>\n
Marc Warren defeated Thorbj\u00f8rn Olesen 4 and 3 to square the contest again at 12-12, but by then Continental Europe had full control of three of the last four ties.<\/p>\n
Miguel Angel Jim\u00e9nez had four birdies in his first six holes as he beat David Lynn 6 and 4, with the Englishman struggling due to illness. <\/p>\n
Matteo Manassero delivered a short-game masterclass to see off Stephen Gallacher 3 and 2 to take Europe to the 14-point mark, before Paul Lawrie produced a magnificent chip of his own on the 17th to set up a 2 and 1 victory over Mikko Ilonen, closing the overall score to 14-13.<\/p>\n
That meant the contest went down to the final match, where Molinari was two up with three holes to play against Wood \u2013 who had dropped down the order after Khan\u2019s withdrawal.<\/p>\n
And cheered on by Olaz\u00e1bal, just as he was at Medinah 12 months ago, Molinari was embraced by his captain and teammates, as Continental Europe clinched an historic win, with the Italian holding his nerve on the 16th green.<\/p>\n
Olaz\u00e1bal said: \u201cObviously I\u2019m very emotional right now because this has been a tough day with everything going to the last match. But the boys played really well and I\u2019m very, very happy to have won the Seve Trophy again after 13 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that starting the singles session all level, it was going to go down to the last three or four matches at least. We had a pretty good start, then Great Britain and Ireland took over and we started to see some red on the board. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut the boys kept their composure and played really well, especially in those last few matches, they played really great golf and we managed to come out on top. I also think the first two matches were crucial, to get a point and a half out of those two, it was big.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is obviously a team contest but I must make special mention of Gr\u00e9gory Bourdy who was absolutely fantastic, especially playing in his home country and in front of his own people. The way he played, being a rookie, he did extraordinary well. Everyone contributed, but Greg did it in a big way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Torrance, who led Europe to Ryder Cup victory in 2002 at The Belfry, paid tribute to the winning side as well as his own battling players.<\/p>\n
The Scot said: \u201cThe Continental European side were very strong and congratulations to them on the victory. We gave it everything, but we just came up short.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was always in the balance and although it got a bit difficult for us midway through the afternoon, we never gave up and fought back. Chris Wood holed a great putt on the 15th to keep his match going and give us hope, but it was a fantastic birdie by Francesco Molinari on the 16th to finish it off. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo well done to Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda and his team, and I think it\u2019s also fair to say that golf was the winner as it was a wonderful event. The taste of defeat is never great, but we will learn from it and come back stronger next time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Photo: \u00a9 Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Continental Europe ended a 13 year wait for victory in the Seve Trophy by Golf+ after defeating Great Britain & Ireland 15-13 in a thrilling encounter at Saint -Nom-La-Bret\u00e8che, on the outskirts of Paris. Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Olaz\u00e1bal\u2019s side won an absorbing singles session 6-4, with Francesco Molinari taking the anchor role as he did for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5611,"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":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5610","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=5610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}