IRELAND’S GRAEME MCDOWELL has missed out on the chance to win the Volvo World Match Play today.
Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts took the title at Finca Cortesin in Spain.
He won six holes throughout the final of the European Tour event at Finca Cortesin, Andalucia, only for McDowell to respond by winning the next hole on five separate occasions.
The only time the Northern Irishman failed to return fire was following Colsaerts’ success at the par-five 11th, where McDowell made bogey. The two men halved the next hole with respective fours, and it ultimately proved the difference, with Colsaerts claiming his second European Tour victory, and the seventh of his professional career.
Earlier, Colsaerts enjoyed the narrowest of victories over Paul Lawrie in the semi-finals, beating the Scotsman on the second playoff hole. Lawrie won the first four holes to take a stranglehold on the match, only for Colsaerts to hit back with four wins between the eighth and 14th.
Lawrie regained the lead by winning the par-four 16th, and Colsaerts needed a birdie at the last to extend the contest, before also birdying the second playoff hole. In the other semi-final, McDowell ended the home challenge of Rafael Cabrera-Bello, beating the Spaniard by two holes.
Colsaerts’ previous European Tour victory came at the 2011 Volvo China Open.His performance takes him into the world’s top 50 for the first time and puts him in the Ryder Cup reckoning.
