PGA duo wilt as Manassero blooms

The hopes Greig Hutcheon and Jason Levermore harboured of ending the BMW PGA championship with a flourish wilted in the Surrey sunshine today.

Having succeeded where others such as Rory McIlroy and defending champion Luke Donald had failed by making the cut, and then kicking on to begin the final round in credit, both PGA Professionals ran out of steam.

Not so Simon Khan, the PGA Professional who began his career in the East region and has opted for a tournament career.

Khan did not so much run out of steam as dry land when he missed out on winning the tournament for a second time by losing in a three-way play-off.

The 40-year-old, who finished second in the event in 2006 and won it four years later after having to regain his tour card, posted a joint tournament best round of 66 to finish level on 10-under with Marc Warren and Matteo Manassero.

Warren bowed out at the first play-off hole, the par five 18^th, after losing his ball off the tee and then finding the water with his fourth shot.

Thereafter Manassero and Khan negotiated the hole once more before, at the third time of asking, the former found the green with his second shot while the latter dunked his in the stream that guards it.

With his opponent on the green for four, the Italian drilled his eagle putt within inches of the hole and then tapped it home to become, at the age of 20 years and 37 days, its youngest ever winner.

Earlier, Hutcheon, three-under at the start of play and well placed to challenge for a lucrative payday, completed his fourth and final circuit of Wentworth’s West Course by posting an anti-climatic seven-over.

That gave him a total for the tournament of four over which, with Levermore imploding after the turn and posting six over for the round, earned him the silver salver for being the highest placed of the 10 PGA Professionals who qualified for the event via the Titleist PGA Play-Offs.

Although honoured to finish as the leading PGA Professional after overcoming foul weather conditions to qualify for the final two rounds, Hutcheon did not mask his disappointment at not building on the solid foundations he had laid, especially in the third round when he posted a five-under-par 67.  

“It was as easy to shoot 79 today as it was to shoot 67 yesterday,” he lamented. “That’s the way it goes. It’s expensive that’s the problem. If I’d shot level par today I would be 30 grand better off. It’s hard to bear.”

In common with Levermore earlier, the 40-year-old from Banchory, Scotland, was left to rue a disastrous back nine that had begun with an incident worthy of inclusion on A Question of Sport’s What Happened Next section.

“I hit my tee shot on the par three tenth slightly right of the flag and landed in the bunker,” he explained. “Then when I get up there, there’s nothing to be seen. Nothing. It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve seen - I’ve never seen a ball plug in a Wentworth bunker.

“So we’re standing there and the spectators are saying ‘it’s in the bunker, it’s in the bunker’. But there was nothing there. The referee arrived and told us we could search for it. I was using the rake, Rory Brown, my caddy, used his hands and found it and I got it up and down for par.

Thereafter, the round unraveled. Five bogeys blighted the final eight holes and Hutcheon added: “I know I can play better than that.

“But the game of golf just astounds me – how easily things like that can happen. But it’s Wentworth. You hit the ball in the right places and you can play the golf course. If you get out of position, you’re done.”

Despite the disappointment Hutcheon hopes the positive aspects of his display have not gone unnoticed by Russell Weir, The PGA Cup captain.

“I hope my performance is good enough to merit a pick from Russell Weir,” he added. “That’s all I’m trying to do this year. I’ve got the Scottish Open as well, some Challenge Tour events and the Tartan Tour events.”

 By contrast, Levermore’s tournament days are over for the time being.

 

“I’m not playing the Order of Merits this year because I’ve taken on the club pro job at Channels in Essex,” he explained. “I’ve got to get that up and running and I had a little boy three weeks ago so I’ve got some different priorities now.

“Hopefully, though, I’ll be able to get out and play again next year.”

In the meantime, the 33-year-old will have the memory of a birdie at the last and the cheers from his enthusiastic band of followers that accompanied it to cherish.

He admitted, however, that what went beforehand is best forgotten.

“The last was a nice way to finish but the previous 11 or 12 holes weren’t so good,” he said.

“I got off to a lovely start – I was couple under through six, I think. Then I dropped nine shots in the next 11 holes. Apart from going out of bounds at 17 there didn’t appear to be a specific problem.

"I just whittled the shots away and it seemed like awfully hardly work. It was strange given the good conditions. I shoot two-under when having to play when it’s like a hurricane and chucking it down with rain, then I do this in the sunshine.”

 As well as the birdie at the last and the rapturous reception, Levermore also has the memory of his hole-in-one at the par three second on Thursday to savour.

 “That has to be the highlight of the week,” he added. “So was thinking for a couple of hours that it had won me a car worth a hundred grand. The downside was probably the break in play when I heard I hadn’t won the car.

 "But it’s been a good week all round. If someone said beforehand I’d make the cut and come about 60^th I would have settled for that.”