Soderberg sprints to European fastest round

DUBAI • Sebastian Soderberg, 29, made golfing history yesterday as the Swede completed his final round at the Dubai Desert Classic in a European record time of one hour and 36 minutes.

He was playing alone and first off after 71 players made the cut.

With his brother Jesper on the bag, the duo decided to play as quickly as possible, their strategy included sprinting after hitting each shot and between the holes.

Soderberg said he needed a buy-in from his brother and caddie to execute the plan.

"I thought about it last night, but the important thing was that my brother on the bag, he had the big job, because he ran non-stop pretty much," he revealed. "He said this morning that he was excited about it, so we said 'let's do this'."

The previous fastest round on the European Tour was one hour and 59 minutes by Belgium's Thomas Pieters at the Italian Open last year.

On the PGA Tour, American Wesley Bryan needed just 89 minutes to finish his final round at the 2017 BMW Championship.

Soderberg, the winner of last year's European Masters, added: "We decided that whenever it was a par-three, he would go and wait on the greens. On par-fours and fives, he would just leave me the appropriate clubs and go to the fairways."

He hit his first tee shot at 7.10am local time and sunk his last putt for par on the 18th at 8.46am.

Sweating profusely after his pivotal part in the record-breaking bid, Jesper said: "It was fun, but I am never going to do that again. I actually have no idea of what he shot. I did not count anything."

Soderberg made a birdie on the fifth hole and four bogeys for a three-over 75.

He finished at 10-over 298 for the US$3.25 million (S$4.39 million) tournament, which was won by Australia's Lucas Herbert, who beat South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout on the second playoff hole. Both men closed with 68s and finished on 279.

Golf's authorities have begun cracking down on slow play with strict penalties and new regulations being rolled out.

The European Tour's new policies began at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship earlier this month.

The United States-based PGA Tour will implement its new pace-of-play in April at the RBC Heritage, the week after The Masters.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on January 27, 2020, with the headline Soderberg sprints to European fastest round. Subscribe