Brendon de Jonge loses to Ryan Moore at the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open
A wayward tee shot on the 16th hole cost Brendon de Jonge of Zimbabwe a victory in the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, as he lost to Ryan Moore with a one-stroke margin, on Sunday, October 7, 2012.
De Jonge started his final-round campaign on top of the leaderboard. He was sharing the lead with Moore and Jonas Blixt.
He kept the momentum going and carded three birdies against a lone bogey on the front nine to reach the turn with a two-under par score.
At the same time, Moore also carded the same score and remained in the share of the lead, entering the last nine holes of the tournament.
Both the players then birdied the 11th and the 13th hole to remain in contention. However, Moore took the advantage of de Jonge’s wayward tee shot on the 16th hole and took the outright lead with a birdie.
“Today, playing a little bit down breeze, all you’ve got to do is get one in the fairway,” de Jonge said. “It’s almost a mid-iron in there, so that was definitely a turning point, you know, the bad tee shot there”.
The Zimbabwean still had a chance to force the game to enter the sudden-death playoffs with at least one birdie on the last two holes.
However, both the players parred the last holes and Moore took home the second PGA Tour victory of his career.
At the end of the tournament, de Jonge seemed pleased with his overall performance in the tournament. Meanwhile, he also praised the way Moore played throughout the four rounds.
“I played nicely all week,” de Jonge said. “Hats off to Ryan. Hee played great, especially down the stretch. He made a couple tough shots in there on 17 and 18, and he pulled them off when he needed to”.
Blixt, in the meantime, failed to keep the momentum going and registered only two birdies against a lone bogey to take the third position. He settled for a 20-under par tournament score, four strokes behind Moore.
Jason Day took the fourth spot on the leaderboard after signing his scorecard with an 18-under par score.
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