Pablo Larraz\u00e1bal showed once again his fondness for picking up prestigious titles on The European Tour when he held off a stellar cast to claim the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship.<\/p>\n
The 30 year old Spaniard \u2013 whose previous Tour triumphs have come in the Alstom Open de France and the BMW International Open in Germany \u2013 carded a bold final round 67 on the National Course for a 14 under par total of 274 and a one shot victory over Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI win when I can and I win when I have a chance to win,\u201d said the former Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year. \u201cBut it was great to do it when all my family and my team were here. They know who they are they all know how hard I\u2019ve worked for this. I thank them for supporting me and continuing to push me hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Larraz\u00e1bal started the final round three shots behind leader Craig Lee, but as the Scot faded, the Spaniard seized the initiative. Reaching the turn in 32, further birdies at the 11th and 13th saw him hit the front and when he two putted the final hole for his sixth birdie of the round, it set a target neither of his two illustrious pursuers could match.<\/p>\n
Mickelson, the reigning Open Champion, battled hard and produced his usual brand of golfing fireworks as he strove to close the gap. But the 43 year old Californian\u2019s challenge was undone at the 13th where a double hit, while attempting to extricate himself right handed from a bush, saw him run up a triple bogey seven.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt never crossed my mind that I would double hit it,\u201d said the American, who gamely fought to make up the lost ground with birdies on the 14th, 16th and 18th holes. \u201cBut I enjoy challenging myself to hit some shots. Sometimes they come off, and sometimes they don\u2019t. This week I had a little bit of both.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Mickelson, joint runner-up McIlroy tried everything to make up ground on Larraz\u00e1bal, but seven straight pars from the 11th to the 17th saw him unable to do so; like Mickelson, his birdie four at the last leaving his total one shot shy of the mark.<\/p>\n
It did, of course, leave the Northern Irishman rueing the rules infringement he incurred during Saturday\u2019s third round, a mistake which cost him a two shot penalty and, ultimately, the title.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m standing here and I feel I should be 15 under par for the tournament and the winner, not 13 under par and the runner-up,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that\u2019s the way it goes I suppose. I played the least shots of anyone here this week so I suppose I can count that as a moral victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019ve very happy with the week as a whole. I came in here telling everyone I was happy with my game and I think I\u2019ve proved that by doing a lot of good work. So it\u2019s fair to say I\u2019m really excited about the rest of the season now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Larraz\u00e1bal\u2019s fellow Spaniard Rafa Cabrera-Bello (68) \u2013 who held the lead at one stage during the front nine, slipped back to share fourth with South African George Coetzee (66) on 12 under par 276, while Dutchman Joost Luiten completed the top six with a 68 for ten under par 278.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pablo Larraz\u00e1bal showed once again his fondness for picking up prestigious titles on The European Tour when he held off a stellar cast to claim the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship. The 30 year old Spaniard \u2013 whose previous Tour triumphs have come in the Alstom Open de France and the BMW International Open in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6372,"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-6373","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\/6373","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=6373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/golfcircus.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}