Andrea Pavan beat Matthew Fitzpatrick in a playoff to win his second European Tour title at the BMW International Open.
The Italian had set the pace on day one at Golfclub München Eichenried but entered the final round four shots off the lead before carding a closing 66 to set the clubhouse target at 15 under.
It looked like that may not be enough as Fitzpatrick entered the scoreable closing stretch in a share of the lead but the Englishman bogeyed the 17th before picking the shot back up on the last to set up the play-off.
Heavy rain began to fall as the playoff got under way and that may have helped Fitzpatrick as his second shot when they went back up the last plugged in the rough inches short of the water as he went for the green.
Pavan played the par five as a textbook lay up and a pair of pars sent to duo back to the tee.
Second time around Pavan played a poor second but his third was sublime to set up a birdie from two feet and, when Fitzpatrick failed to get up and down from the sand, Pavan was the champion.
Austrian Matthias Schwab had led by two with seven holes to play but he signed for a 71 to finish in a tie for third at 13 under alongside defending champion Matt Wallace, overnight leader Jordan Smith, Spanish duo Rafa Cabrera Bello and Alvaro Quiros, South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Italian Edoardo Molinari.
Cabrera Bello and Wallace had also held the lead at points on a thrilling final day in Munich but in the end it came down to a head to head battle.
Bezuidenhout banked €76 400 after a second weekend 70. For the third straight day, he bogeyed the third before making up for that stumble with gains at 5 and 6. Those birdies left him in with a major shout but he failed to birdie any of the remaining three par 5s.
In fact, his last 12 holes yielded just a single birdie to go with 11 pars as he failed to make up the shots required to force his way into the playoff.
