A course record-tying 63 plus three extra holes was all Sweden’s Jesper Svensson needed to collect his maiden DP World Tour victory Sunday at the Porsche Singapore Classic.
Svensson fired a closing 9-under 63 at Laguna National Golf Resort Club, but it wasn’t until Thailand’s Kiradech Aphibarnrat bogeyed the third playoff hole before the 28-year-old could celebrate lifting the trophy in just his 14th career start on the European circuit.
“It’s been a long journey,” Svensson said. “To win on my first season out here, I couldn’t have dreamt of it. It’s always been a dream to be a winner on the DP World Tour, and to achieve it feels amazing.”
Aphibarnrat wouldn’t make it easy, making eagle on the last hole of regulation to cap a final-round 64 of his own and force a playoff at 17-under 271. Both players birdied the 18th hole the first extra time through it and parred it the second.
But on the third pass in the playoff, Aphibarnrat went over the back of the green and made bogey, opening the door for Svensson to two-putt for par and the win.
"Combined with the Challenge Tour last year and the beginning of this season, I’ve had five second-place spots in the last year. I really wanted to come out on top here.”
Jesper Svensson
It caps a consistent rise in the last year for the fifth-year pro, who won the B-NL Challenge Trophy and was runner-up three times in 2023 to finish fifth in the Challenge Tour’s Road to Mallorca to earn his DP World Tour card for 2024.
He maintained his hot hand after the promotion, finishing second in the Investec South African Open Championship in December in just his sixth DP World Tour start and backing that up with another runner-up in the Bahrain Championship in February.
With his victory, Svensson jumps to third in the Race to Dubai standings.
“It’s been a lot of good golf so it was nice to finally come out on top,” said Svensson, who was a two-time Big South Conference champion in college at Campbell University. “It’s very hard to win, so it’s really nice. … Combined with the Challenge Tour last year and the beginning of this season, I’ve had five second-place spots in the last year. I really wanted to come out on top here.”
Svensson began the final round five shots off the lead of Australian David Micheluzzi but made a blistering charge out of the gate with a birdie-birdie-eagle start. Playing with 2019 Open champion Shane Lowry of Ireland and Haotong Li of China, Svensson's record-tying 63 included eight birdies, two eagles and three bogeys.
On the par-5 14th hole, Svensson and his caddie, Lucky, were considering laying up before deciding to go for it, hitting his second to 8 feet to make eagle and open a three-shot lead.
“We both said, ‘no, we’re not finishing second again,’ and it was the best shot of the week,” Svensson said.
Aphibarnrat made three birdies and an eagle in the last five holes to catch Svensson before succumbing in the playoff.
England’s Sam Bairstow finished third, one stroke out of the playoff, and countryman Andy Sullivan was fourth, another stroke back. France’s Matthieu Pavon, a PGA Tour winner this year at Torrey Pines, was fifth, followed by LIV Golf’s Paul Casey in sixth and 54-hole leader Micheluzzi, who faded into a tie for seventh.
Staff and tour reports