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Three months shy of his 47th birthday, Lee Westwood added another victory to his impressive catalogue on Sunday, outdueling Tommy Fleetwood, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Victor Perez to capture the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. With his 25th European Tour victory, the Englishman became the second man to win stroke-play titles on the circuit in four different decades.
All last week, Westwood showed what he had learned from playing top-class golf for more than a quarter century. He showed that hard work had paid off, writes John Hopkins.
Jack Nicklaus, arguably the greatest to play the game, will hit a milestone on Tuesday: his 80th birthday. But even as he officially becomes an octogenarian, Jack and his life on and off the golf course seem as big as ever. The best gift we can give him, writes Ron Green Jr., is our continued gratitude and appreciation for Jack being Jack all these 80 years.
Andrew Landry didn’t make it easy on himself, losing a six-stroke lead with six holes to play, but birdies at the two finishing holes Sunday allowed him to win the PGA Tour’s American Express tournament by two strokes ahead of fast-closing Abraham Ancer in La Quinta, Calif.
The Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship went mostly well for Brooks Koepka, who was coming back after aggravating a knee injury last fall, and not so well for Bryson DeChambeau.
Josh Hill, a gangling, 6-foot-3 15-year-old who lives half the year in Dubai and half in England, missed the cut in Abu Dhabi but scored an impressive pre-tournament triumph against the game’s top dog.
With a birdie Monday morning on the seventh playoff hole, Mexico's Gaby López won the LPGA's Diamond Resorts Tournament of Champions, defeating Japan’s Nasa Hataoka. The playoff had been suspended after five holes Sunday because of darkness.
Abel Gallegos, a 17-year-old Argentine golfer who looks like he could play rugby with equal aplomb, won the Latin America Amateur at Mexico’s Mayakoba Resort on Sunday, thereby earning berths in this year’s Masters and Open Championship.
Charlotte Heath became the first British player to claim the Australian Women’s Amateur title in a quarter of a century when she beat Indonesia’s Mela Putri in the final of this year’s championship at Royal Queensland Golf Club, writes Colin Callander.
The comportment of three past Latin America Amateur champions last week struck a positive chord, this week’s installment of The Divot observes.
Mike Cullity
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