The Swiss weather behaved itself on the final day of the HotelPlanner Tour’s Swiss Open as playing conditions were prime around Golf Sempach in Lucerne.
Kilkenny’s Mark Power was able to bounce back from his somewhat disappointing even-par third round with a 68 on Sunday as the 25-year-old finished his weeks work in T36.
Power started well with four birdies alongside a bogey on the front nine to take the turn at two-under. Power’s back nine didn’t start as well as the front as he made back-to-back bogeys at the 10th and 11th.
The Mount Juliet man quickly regrouped and got back on the horse with a birdie at the par-4 15th before he got to his favourite hole of the week, the par-5 17th where he made eagle for the third time this week to end his tournament at seven-under-par. Power now sits 92nd in the HotelPlanner Tour rankings.
Galway’s Ronan Mullarney looked to forget his four-over-par third round with a strong performance in the final round and he can be happy with how he finished on Sunday, considering he began his day with a double-bogey at the first.
Mullarney got back to even-par with two birdies at the third and fourth before a slip up at the fifth added a bogey to his card. One-over-par after nine holes, another blunder came at the 11th where Mullarney once again made a double bogey.
The 30-year-old did well to bounce back quickly as he closed out his back nine with three more birdies at the 12th, 13th, and 17th to post an even-par 71 as he finished T57 at one-under-par. Mullarney has been suffering from a slow start in the early season as he now sits 159th in the HotelPlanner Tour rankings.
37-year-old Englishman Matthew Southgate pieced together the round of his life as he posted a bogey-free nine-under-par to win the Swiss Challenge by eight strokes.
Southgate made six birdies on the front and three more on the back as he came just short of the 10-under-par course record which was set by India’s Veer Ahlawat in Friday’s round two.
“It’s been a great week. Today was very unexpected to be honest, I was so focused on each hole and each shot that I didn’t really look at the leaderboard,” said Southgate.
“I was expecting things to go wrong in some way, thinking I’m bound to get a three putt or something and it just didn’t happen, I was so steady and I putted fantastically,” he added.
Second place was shared amongst seven players, all finishing on 15-under. Among those were 54-hole leader George Bloor and Scotland’s Marc Warren who posted an eight-under round to climb 26 places on the final day.
The HotelPlanner Tour now heads to Austria for the Interwetten Open on June 11th.
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