Darren Fichardt put last year’s play-off disappointment behind him to win the 2026 Staysure PGA Seniors Championship by five shots at Trump International Golf Links, Aberdeen.
Twelve months after losing to Bo Van Pelt on the first extra hole, the South African returned with what he described earlier in the week as “unfinished business” and closed with a four-under-par 68 to finish on 12-under-par and lift the trophy at senior golf’s oldest professional tournament.
“I was thinking about it last night. It just slipped out of my hands last year,” said the five-time DP World Tour winner.
“The weather was completely different today, so I was a little nervous and didn’t know what to expect. I thought the guys were going to go really low.”
Fichardt began the final round with a four-shot advantage and initially looked set to pull away, opening with consecutive birdies to move to ten-under. Successive bogeys at the sixth and seventh brought him back to the field, however, as Mikael Lundberg and Jamie Donaldson began to apply pressure.
Playing two groups ahead, Sweden’s Lundberg birdied the fourth and sixth before adding further gains at the 12th and 15th, while Donaldson recovered from an early double bogey with birdies at the fourth, seventh and eighth.
Fichardt responded with back-to-back birdies around the turn, but a bogey at the 11th saw his advantage cut to just two as Donaldson moved firmly into contention.
The Welshman’s challenge suffered a costly setback with a disastrous triple-bogey at the 13th, while Lundberg continued his charge and eventually birdied the last to complete a five-under-par 67 and set the clubhouse target at seven-under.
For Fichardt, a testing par save at the 14th proved an important moment.
“The putt on 14 for par was crucial for me,” he said. “I felt like I was all over the place when things weren’t going my way. “When I made that, I said to my wife, ‘Okay, I think we’ve got it.’”
A birdie at the par-five 15th strengthened his position before Fichardt finished the championship in style. A majestic 4-iron into the par-five 18th finished just a couple of feet from the hole, leaving a tap-in eagle to complete a 68 and a 12-under-par total of 276.
Cameron Clark finished in a tie for 18th at one-over-par after closing with a two-under 70, resulting in his best finish to date in his rookie Legends Tour season. The Ballymena man will be a little disappointed not to have been a little higher, however, as he double bogeyed the par-5 15th having made five birdies in a seven-hole stretch either side of the turn.
Gary Murphy, the only other Irishman to make the cut, closed with a two-over 74 to finish tied for 51st, but it’ll be a week he’ll remember having made a hole-in-one on the seventh in round one.
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