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Hampshire's Justin Rose won the European Tour Order of Merit after his dramatic victory in the Volvo Masters at Valderrama.
Rose clinched victory after overcoming the challenge of reigning champion Padraig Harrington, who pipped Surrey's Paul Casey to the 2006 Order of Merit title at Valderrama last season. While Rose and Harrington went head-to-head for the crown in Spain, Ernie Els – the Order of Merit leader before the event – was forced to watch from the sidelines after sponsor commitments saw the South African play on the Asian Tour in Singapore.
Despite having led the Volvo Masters on each of the four days going in to the final round, Rose was forced to collect his thoughts after stumbling over the back nine and reproduce his top form to edge past Simon Dyson and Denmark’s Soren Kjeldsen in a three-way play-off.
“I looked like losing and dug deep," said the new world number seven. "I'm sure there's an easy way to do this stuff, but it was terrible. I made a couple of mental errors and even saw the Order of Merit slipping away.”
Although Rose ended his chase for the European Tour’s top honour in style with his second Tour triumph of the season, the South African-born golfer had already wrapped up the Order of Merit before the play-off after Harrington finished two strokes off the pace and in a share of fourth.
“It's awesome to do it,” said Rose. “Knowing I had won was a nice consolation going into the play-off, but I wanted to do it by winning the tournament. It's been a long road to get here. You need to win tournaments to be regarded as a great player and it would have been very disappointing if I hadn't won this. It's the pinnacle of my career so far.”
Rose’s previous victory on Tour this season came at the MasterCard Masters in November 2006. The mainstay of Rose’s Order of Merit challenge has been his consistent performances in the Majors – earning top 12 places in each of the big four including a career best fifth at the Masters.
“Until winning [the Order of Merit], the thing I took most confidence and comfort from was the fact I played well in the Majors this year and got close to winning the Masters. That's where I've gained a lot of confidence from”, added 27-year-old Rose, the youngest winner of the Order of Merit since Ronan Rafferty – then two years Rose’s junior – back in 1989.  |
