Broadhurst ends 10-year wait for victory
England’s Paul Broadhurst tonight won his first European Tour event for a decade after an extraordinary finish to the Portuguese Open.
Broadhurst thought his chance had disappeared when he bogeyed the final hole after driving into a bush to the left of the fairway.
But in the group behind, long-time leaders Barry Lane and Paul Lawrie made a mess of the 17th, Lane taking a bogey five and former Open champion Lawrie a triple-bogey seven.
That still left Lane needing only to par the 18th to win but the 44-year-old amazingly crashed to a quintuple-bogey nine after also driving into a bush.
Attempting to hack out onto the fairway, Lane hit his second shot far too hard across the fairway to within a foot of the out-of-bounds fence.
From there he carved his third shot out of bounds and after taking a penalty drop for an unplayable lie, hit his sixth shot short of the green.
Lawrie then had a 12-foot birdie putt to force a play-off but contrived to leave it short, leaving Broadhurst to claim the £144,000 first prize for his first victory since the 1995 French Open.
A closing 67 gave Broadhurst a 13-under total of 271, one ahead of Lawrie with Portugal’s Jose-Filipe Lima in third.
Lane had to settle for a share of fifth on eight under par.
