Grace's graceful fulfilment of long-held ambition

Golf Correspondent

Monday 8 October 2012

It took a while – eight minutes short of six hours in fact – but, amid the lengthening shadows of a delightful evening in the Auld Grey Toon, Branden Grace finally put the tin lid on an event he had led from the very start and last night won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews.

Branden Grace plays to the 18th on the Old Course yesterday

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Nick Rodger

The 24-year-old South African, who had began his assault with a barnstorming 60 at Kingsbarns on Thursday, closed with a more modest two-under 70 over the Old Course yesterday but it was enough to ease him to a fourth European Tour title of a sparkling season.

Grace, fresh from winning on the Sunshine circuit in his native land the previous weekend, finished with a 22-under aggregate of 266 and came in two shots clear of the Danish youngster, Thorbjorn Olesen, who put up a stout challenge and almost made it interesting on the last with an eagle attempt that teetered on the edge of the cup.Stephen Gallacher, the Scot who won the Dunhill Links title back in 2004, was also making some menacing advances on Grace until a late calamity thwarted his ambitions. In this pro-am trudge, Gallacher was left counting the cost of his own amateurish mistake. Lurking in fourth place, and just three strokes off the lead coming down the stretch, the 37-year-old hit the wrong ball on the 16th, was given a two-shot penalty and eventually racked up a crippling quadruple bogey eight which dropped him down the standings and scuppered his hopes. The ball in question belonged to Yorkshire businessman Steve Halsall, who was the amateur player in Gallacher's group, having qualified for the final round in the team competition with professional partner Danny Willett. Critics of the Dunhill's format have always called for the amateur element of the tournament to cease after 54 holes in order to allow the pros to get on with slugging it out for the first prize of £461,642 at the business end of affairs on the concluding Sunday. As funeral corteges, glaciers and arthritic turtles hurtled by at a furious rate, it is easy to warm to that particular argument with the pace of play shuddering to a wearisome crawl. In this lapse of time, Gallacher had a mental lapse. If the Bathgate man had parred that 16th hole instead of taking an eight, he could have earned over £100,000 more than the eventual cheque for £80,990 he pocketed for a share of fifth on a 15-under 273. He wasn't blaming anyone but himself, though. "It was my mistake," said Gallacher, who was also landed with a penalty shot on day one at the Old Course when he hit a loose divot with his practice swing and the sod of earth dunted his ball. "The mistake I made was not really watching where the amateur hit it. He was hitting from a tee 100 yards further up than me so I never even took him into the equation, I just hit the shot. Then the amateur, who was standing about five yards left in the rough, said 'have you seen my ball? I've got one here but it's not mine.'"Turns out it was mine. We were both playing Titleist 1s, his marked with a red dot and mine with a green dot. Unfortunately with the way it was sitting I couldn't see the marking. I've never done that before and from now I'll be looking a bit more closely." As Gallacher was left to reflect on what might have been, Grace was left to savour another victory of an astounding season. Four ahead overnight, Grace settled any final-day nerves with a birdie on the very first hole but he was not about to enjoy a victory procession. Olesen, who made his breakthrough on the European circuit by winning April's Sicilian Open, launched his raid on the outward half and, as Grace slipped to a bogey on the seventh, the young Dane birdied the eighth and ninth to cut the lead to just one. Olesen was level when Grace leaked another shot on the short 11th with a three-putt but the South African steadied the ship and produced a telling thrust to sail away again. He reeled of a succession of birdies at 12, 13 and 14 and, despite spilling a shot on the Road Hole 17th, a birdie on the last provided the final flourish.Two years after his good friend and countryman Louis Oosthuizen plundered the claret jug in the 2010 Open Championship at St Andrews, Grace also got the opportunity to sit on the iconic Swilcan Bridge with some silverware in his hands."I looked at a couple of pictures of Louis's win on the internet in the morning and I think winning here and lifting a trophy on that bridge is one of those things you look forward to your whole life as a golfer," said Grace, who is now up to third in the Race to Dubai and has not given up hope of pipping Rory McIlroy to the No.1 spot on the European order of merit. "The Open is one we all strive to win, and that's a goal for the future, but for now this one will do."Olesen posted a 68 to claim second on his own on 268 with Sweden's Alexander Noren taking third on 270. Grace's compatriot George Coetzee came hurtling up the field with a course record-equalling 62 to join the posse in a share of fifth.

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Grace's graceful fulfilment of long-held ambition

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