Manassero is youngest ever European Tour winner
Italian maestro Matteo Manassero claimed victory at the Castelló Masters on Sunday, winning by four strokes to collect his first trophy at this level - and replace New Zealand's Danny Lee as the youngest ever winner on the European Tour. Manassero's victory comes at the age of just 17 years and 188 days.
The teenage sensation first came to prominence when he won the British Amateur Championship in 2009, and only turned professional at the beginning of May this year. Having drawn comparisons with Spain's legendary Seve Ballesteros, Manassero had already booked his card for next year's tour with an impressive 3rd place finish at the Omega European Masters in September.
A missed cut in Portugal last week was hardly an encouraging augur for this event, but Manassero played with admirable consistency over the entire tournament in Valencia, carding rounds of 68, 66, 67 and 67 and coming home four-under-par on Sunday with five birdies and a bogey to finish 16-under-par for the tournament.
Still two strokes off the lead with six holes to go, the young man from Verona birdied three holes on the bounce on the 13th, 14th and 15th, and kept his head to level the remaining three holes while his rivals failed to keep their composure.
Spain's Ignacio Garrido was in second place on 12-under for the tournament, with Holland's Joost Luiten, Ireland's Peter Lawrie, England's Gary Boyd and Sweden's Christian Nilsson all tied for third place on 11-under.
Boyd had led at the start of play on Sunday, but a nightmare trio of bogey, double bogey and bogey between the 15th and 17th holes offered a grim contrast to Manassero's own run of three, Boyd eventually finishing three-over-par 74 for his final round.
Manassero admitted he could scarcely believe his speedy progress, telling Sky Sports: "I always worked hard for this moment and now I've finally done it, it's an unbelievable moment."
"I couldn't really imagine to be a winner in the first year, it was really just to keep my card, but now I'm a winner already."
Two of Spain's greatest golfers were making comebacks at the Club de Campo del Mediterráneo this week, but neither fared particularly well. Sergio Garcia failed to make the cut on Friday after shooting two-over-par for the tournament.
Garcia was returning from a two month break from the game, after the 30-year-old plummeted out of the world top-50 earlier this year, from a ranking of world No. 2 just 18 months ago.
José María Olazábal, too, was back in action; this was only the 44-year-old's second start of 2010, with the two-time Masters winner struggling to overcome the arthritis that has blighted his career intermittently for the last 15 years.
Olazábal did make it to the weekend, but was disqualified on Sunday after signing a five for the 17th; he had in fact made the hole in six, and would have finished last of the players to make the cut were it not for the disqualification.
A bad day for the Spanish then, but with first the Molinari brothers contributing to Europe's victory at the Ryder Cup, and now Manassero claiming glory, 2010 is turning out to be a memorable year for Italian golf.
Tags: