Ernie Els claimed his third European Tour victory of 2005 and his 21st career European title Monday morning as he shot a final-round 65 to win by 13 strokes over Simon Wakefield and the rest of the field.
Els went wire-to-wire to claim the BMW Asian Open and set the Asian Tour record for largest margin of victory. He also stands in second for the largest margin of victory in a European Tour-sanctioned event, trailing Tiger Woods and his 15-stroke victory at the 2000 U.S. Open. This was Els’ tenth wire-to-wire victory on the European Tour.
Wakefied shot a final-round 73 and didn’t offer much competition to Els, finishing at -13. Thomas Bjorn shot a 72 to stand alone in third place. Wakefield’s second-place finish has all but secured the Englishman his European Tour Card the 2006 season.
For Els, the victory offers validation that the changes to his swing were helpful. With a swing like Ernie’s there’s not a lot to change, but he noticed that his posture was a little off and adjusted accordingly.
Eddie Lee and Jean-François Lucquin finished at 10-under par and tied for fourth while Luke Donald and Stuart Little tied for sixth at -9.
Twelve groups were forced to complete their final round on Monday morning as the threat of thunderstorms delayed play on Sunday.
Pos Player R1 R2 R3 R4 Tot 1 Ernie Els 67 62 68 65 -26 2 Simon Wakefield 67 69 66 73 -13 3 Thomas Bjorn 71 65 68 72 -12 T4 Eddie Lee 67 66 73 72 -10 T4 Jean-François Lucquin 70 66 69 73 -10 T6 Luke Donald 70 69 68 72 -9 T6 Stuart Little 71 70 72 66 -9 T8 Soren Hansen 69 70 68 73 -8 T8 James Kingston 70 71 69 70 -8 T10 Peter Hedblom 72 69 70 70 -7 T10 Edward Michaels 74 69 67 71 -7 T10 David Park 70 69 71 71 -7 T10 Jeev Milkha Singh 69 68 70 74 -7
Photo Credit: © Reuters/Aly Song.
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