Any signs Ruth may have been feeling the pressure were put to bed early on when he recorded back-to-back birdies on holes three and four to go two-under-par.
His opponent Dave Coupland was determined to close the gap and raced to three-under-par through the first six holes.
Cort, however, struggled to make up ground and had to wait until the ninth hole to pick up his birdie of the day. Ruth also birdied nine but his lead was cut to four, the shortest it’s been all week, when Coupland birdied hole 10.
Both players bogeyed 12 and with Coupland breathing down his neck waiting to pounce on any more errors, Ruth kept his cool to win by four shots with a final score of 14-under-par.
“It’s always tricky when you come back to defend your title,” said Ruth. “It’s not an easy thing to do, but with my round on Tuesday, people say you can’t win a tournament in the first round, well I definitely think I did this week. That was the best round of my life and the last few days I was hanging on a bit.
“I was really struggling with my driver today so I hit a lot of irons and managed the game really well. I’m really proud to shoot two-under-par. I was almost more proud of today’s round than I was Tuesday’s because it’s easy to shoot a good score when you’re playing well, but to shoot two-under-par playing as I was, I was really pleased with that.”