Justin Harding won’t look back on the par-three 11th at Emirates Golf Club with any fondness after a triple-bogey six there on Sunday saw him crash out of contention in the DP World Tour’s Slync.io Dubai Desert Classic.
While Harding was joined in a flame-out by Rory McIlroy, who bogeyed the last to lose out on either the win or a play-off, it will be of no consolation to him that the 12-under-par winning total was the score on which he started the final round.
Even an opening bogey would not have dimmed Harding’s optimism for the closing round, as, all around him, players battled to make inroads into his lead. He made pars all the way around the turn, and he knew he could make some birdies on the back nine, as the course had been giving those up all week.
Then came the fateful 11th. His tee shot went left into the greenside bunker, 20 metres left of the pin. He played out and over the green into a bunker on the other side. He was only able to get out of the second bunker into the fringe, still six metres short of the hole. He pushed his fourth shot nearly six feet past the pin, and then two-putted from there.
His ashen face showed his disappointment, and, while he picked up a shot on the par-five 13th, it was too little and a bogey on 15 put paid to any chances he might still have had of pulling off the victory which had seemed such a real possibility.
In the end, it took great finishes from two players to get into the play-off: Richard Bland birdied the last two holes to get to 12-under, and Viktor Hovland went birdie-eagle-birdie for the last three holes to also reach 12-under.
Bland had made a 25-footer for birdie on the last hole in regulation play, but he missed a six-footer to keep himself in the play-off after the first extra hole, and Hovland’s fast finish gave him a title which had seemed unlikely at the start of the final round.
Harding finished in a share of fourth on eight-under, together with Erik van Rooyen, who closed with a one-over 73. Brandon Stone had a level-par 72 to be three-under for the tournament in a share of 26th. Justin Walters went two-under in the final round and was on level-par in 35th. Daniel van Tonder was on one-over in 43rd, Garrick Higgo on two-over in 47th with George Coetzee, Dean Burmester on three-over in 55th, and Charl Schwartzel on nine-over in 76th.
