Ferrie cruises to Austrian Open win
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Englishman Kenneth Ferrie defeated compatriot Simon Wakefield in a playoff to win the Austrian GolfOpen presented by Lyoness.
The pair finished tied on 12-under-par, one shot ahead of young Dutch star Joost Luiten, who agonizingly three-putted the final green to miss out.
On the first playoff hole, Wakefield flew the green with his approach while Ferrie knocked it to six feet from the left-hand rough. Wakefield chipped past the hole and his return putt lipped out, leaving Ferrie with two putts to win. He only needed one.
“I feel amazing right now,” said Ferrie. “I haven’t won for six years and I was wondering if it was ever going to happen in the end. To get it done was fantastic.
“It means the world to me. I have been working very hard and doing all the right things but I just haven’t had the results to back it up. So to win here, under the pressure of a play-off, is amazing and it makes all the hard work worthwhile.”
The win is Ferrie’s third on the European Tour and moves him inside the top-60 in the Race to Dubai to 55th.
England’s Tom Lewis, who rose to fame at this year’s Open Championship, put in an impressive performance in his first tournament as a professional. The young man from Welwyn Garden City finished tied-tenth at six-under-par, above big names like Miguel Angel Jimenez and Oliver Wilson.
Third-placed Luiten offers his best driving tips in the next issue of Today’s Golfer magazine, out on October 6th.
Austrian Open final round leaderboard
-12: K Ferrie (Eng), S Wakefield (Eng) -11: J Luiten (Hol) -9: T Norret (Den) Selected others -6: T Lewis (Eng), T Fleetwood (Eng), G Orr (Sco), R Coles (Eng)
