David Lingmerth surged to the top of the leaderboard with a four-under 68, which put him three under at the tournament’s midway point – a shot ahead of Foster, South African pair Zander Lombard (75) and Dylan Frittelli (72), American Peter Uihlein (67), Australia’s Matthew Millar (70) and Spain’s Pablo Martin Benavides (67). Varner’s birdie attempt on 18 that would have given him the win in regulation slid just wide of the cup.
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Little-known Victorian Nathan Holman is set to realise a childhood dream at the British Open next year after a stunning Australian PGA Championship victory on Sunday – not that he realised it at the time.
Holman struck his drive truly and played in from the fairway, drilling an iron into the heart of the green and two-putting for par and the victory, one that looked far more secure about an hour earlier before he suffered a bout of late jitters.
The 24-year-old Holman ended the playoff with a one-foot par putt after Frittelli and Varner bogeyed.
It would be Holman, who started two shots adrift of Varner, Frittelliand Lombard, who had thegolden touch on another dramatic final day.
But birdies at the ninth, 12th and 15th was enough to get him back into the event and that final-round 73 was enough to take him to sudden death.
“I didn’t think it would be this quickly”.
Holman looked poised to continue years of Australian dominance at the championship until back-to-back bogeys on the final two holes – the only blemishes on his card aside from a double-bogey on the first.
“When bad things happen, you’ve just got to shake it off and go onto the next one and today I did that really well”.
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The newly-designed back nine at Royal Pines by former Australian golfer Graham Marsh had six of the toughest nine holes on the course. The closest anyone came to winning a 1 million Australian dollars ($734,000) bonus was Australian Matt Griffin, whose tee shot landed only six inches away from the hole.
