MUNICH, GERMANY | “Driven by passion,” read an enormous message from the sponsors of the BMW International Open at the back of the 18th green at Golfclub München Eichenried last week.
On many occasions in the past it would have neatly defined many a victory in this popular and long-standing DP World Tour event, but Englishman Daniel Brown’s victory on Sunday was very different.
“Driven by emotion,” said one onlooker, but in truth that didn’t hit the mark either because Brown was triumphant as much because he denied emotion as by being fuelled by it.
After carding a second-round 65 that vaulted him into contention, the 30-year-old fought back tears as he signed his card, the death of one of his closest friends just days before weighing heavy on his heart.
Another 65 on Saturday earned a one shot 54-hole lead before he admitted: “I’ve not really thought about winning. I’m trying not to get upset. Win or lose tomorrow, I’ve not really thought about it.”
That attitude extended into the final round. Brown had demonstrated when claiming the first-round lead in the Open at Royal Troon last summer that he has the inscrutable nature typical of his native Yorkshire, but birdies at the first and second holes were polished off with the air of a man who was in a zone he had little comprehension of.
He later said he had been feeling numb and was having an “out-of-body experience”.
“I was travelling on my own and that’s when the reality hit me. It was very difficult. ... I did this for him.”
Daniel Brown
Those early par breakers edged him further clear of the field and he was rarely threatened as he negotiated his way around a course that is not pretty yet offers exceptional value for the galleries with a host of multi-hole vantage points.
Brown eventually completed a Sunday 66 for a 22-under-par total of 266 that left him two shots clear of his compatriot Jordan Smith and four ahead of New Zealand’s Kazuma Kobori.
It is not the first time that a golfer has defied grief, of course. The Englishwoman Mel Reid won the 2012 Prague Golf Masters on the Ladies European Tour in her first start after her mother was killed in a car accident ahead of the same year’s German Open. Her Solheim Cup teammate Becky Brewerton said of that Sunday: “There was not a dry eye in the clubhouse as she clinched the victory.”
The thoughts of DP World Tour veterans also turned to Miles Tunnicliff who, in 2002, was in his eighth year on tour and had never come close to tasting victory. Yet just two weeks after his mother, Pam, passed away – shortly after telling her son to “win one for me” – he triumphed in the Great North Open.
Brown revealed that, after a weekend spent with friends attempting to come to terms with the devastating news, his drive to the airport on Monday had been one of the worst days of his life. “Two hours in the car and two hours in the air,” he said. “I was travelling on my own and that’s when the reality hit me. It was very difficult.”
His friend, he added, was “always the first to message me after a round whether it was good or bad. I did this for him.”
There were consolations prizes for Kristoffer Reitan (Norway), John Parry (England), Haotong Li (China), Daniel Hillier (New Zealand) and Shaun Norris (South Africa), who each earned starts in the Open at Royal Portrush courtesy of being the top five players not already exempt for the year’s final major championship in the top 20 of this year’s Race to Dubai rankings.
Matt Cooper