Richard Wallis successfully defends his title at the Titleist PGA Play-Offs
Richard Wallis of England successfully defended his title at the Titleist PGA Play-Offs, after completing his delayed final-round campaign on Thursday, December 13, 2012.
The tournament was being played at the Antalya Golf Club’s PGA Sultan Course, offering berths in the 2013 BMW PGA Championship, to the top-10 players to finish the event.
In addition to that, the top-three players to finish on the leaderboard also received an entry into the Great Britain and Ireland team, for the PGA Cup encounter against the United States team.
Last year, Wallis held off David Higgins by one stroke to take the title home. This year too, the Walmer & Kingsdown Golf Club pro outshined the same player with a massive four-stroke margin to successfully defend his title in Turkey.
Entering the final round, Wallis held a one stroke lead over Higgins. He then made a shaky start to his campaign, by conceding a bogey on the first hole.
However, the Englishman did not allow a single bad hole to overhaul his overall performance. Consequently, he made a strong comeback by recording birdies on the third and the sixth hole, to reach the turn in one under.
The back nine of the course also witnessed him make some mistakes, as he mixed two birdies with the same number of bogeys, to accumulate a tournament score of an eight-under par 205.
Higgins, in the meantime, faltered on the back nine of the course and conceded five bogeys. As a result, he finished his round at a two-over par 73, for a four-under par tournament score.
“I’m absolutely over the moon. I came here hoping to finish in the top three and get a PGA Cup spot so I’m really pleased to have achieved that especially after the collapse of my swing on the back nine,” said Wallis.
“The thing that made it a little bit of an anti-climax was David chipping to two feet on 16 and missing his birdie. Had he holed that there would have been one shot in it playing the last two which would have made things a little different,” added the Englishman, who pocketed £2,000 as prize money.
Tags: