Dan Bradbury won the FedEx Open de France after a tense final day at Le Golf National.
With well over a dozen players in contention throughout most of the fourth round, Bradbury finally emerged from the pack with three straight birdies on the back nine and held on to win at 16 under par.
Playing in the penultimate group, Bradbury shot a bogey-free 66 on Sunday.
He celebrated his par putt at the last with a fist-pump and then watched from the scorers’ hut as Thorbjørn Olesen and Sam Bairstow also parred the hole to finish one behind, where they were tied with Jeff Winther and Yannik Paul.
Victory secured Bradbury’s place in the season-ending Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship and DP World Tour Championship in neighbouring Dubai, and he quipped: “I guess I’ll be looking at flights to Dubai then!”
Jesper Svensson went into the final round with a one-stroke lead over playing partners Olesen and Bairstow. Olesen struck first with an opening birdie, while up ahead Bradbury had done likewise to move one off the lead.
Svensson dropped back with a three-putt but responded with birdie at the difficult 2nd after a stunning tee-shot inside five feet. Olesen’s par putt stayed up as the pair traded places once more, but he too bounced back with an immediate birdie.
A series of pars for that group allowed others to move into contention and Brandon Stone, who had teed off over two hours before them, made a significant move with a round of 64.
The South African moved into a share of the lead with a ninth birdie of the day at the 14th. His bogey at the 17th, and Olesen’s at the 9th, meant there was briefly an 11-way tie for the lead on 12 under until Bairstow holed his birdie putt.
The latter then holed from 46 feet at the 11th, making him he first player to reach 14 under. He was joined by Winther after a good up-and-down from a bunker at the 14th.
Bairstow birdied the 12th but bogeyed the 13th, allowing Winther to take the lead after a superb tee shot set up a birdie at the par-three 16th.
Fabrizio Zanotti holed excellent birdie putts at the 14th and 16th to move within one and Olesen’s brilliant bunker shot at the 14th took him alongside compatriot Winther.
Bradbury joined them after he narrowly avoided the water at the 15th and held the green before holing from 15 feet.
He admitted afterwards that was the moment he felt it was his day, saying: “Obviously got lucky off the tee, then just straight up pushed it – luckily it stayed on, and I hit a horrendous putt that went in!
“Sometimes you just need that. Once I’d done that it felt like, ‘There’s definitely something going for me’.”
Bairstow followed with a birdie at the same hole but a third straight birdie for Bradbury took him ahead at 16 under.
Winther set the clubhouse target at 15 under and was joined by Paul, whose birdie putt at the last shaved the hole.
Bradbury seemed relaxed going down the 18th, taking off his cap and joking that he should have had a haircut for the TV cameras, and held his nerve to two-putt from distance.
Olesen and Bairstow still had the chance to catch him with a birdie but when their putts stayed up, Bradbury could celebrate.
It is Bradbury’s second win on the DP World Tour, following last season’s Joburg Open. He was third at that same event this term but had only one top-10 finish since, at the Italian Open.
“It hasn’t sunk in at all,” he said. “The goal this week was to make the cut so I didn’t have to go to Korea [needing to] keep my card.
“I remember looking at one point, playing with Gunner [Wiebe] and Joe [Dean], they were both two shots behind me and I was second and they were, like, 14th. Part of me was just thinking, ‘Well, don’t drop a few!’.
“It was just, stay in it – we all know the finish round here, anything can happen, and it almost did.”
Behind the tie for second, Matthew Jordan and Francesco Laporta shared sixth on 14 under with Johannes Veerman – who made the cut on the line after completing round two on Saturday morning, before finishing 63-67 – alongside Wiebe on 13 under.
Stone and Simon Forsström shared 10th.
– Report from DP World Tour website
Photo: Warren Little/Getty Images
