Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger beat Tommy Fleetwood in a play-off to win the Shenzhen International on a dramatic final day at Genzon Golf Club in China.
Making his 200th appearance on the European Tour, the Austrian entered the final round with a three-shot lead, and eight shots ahead of Fleetwood, but the Englishman fired a stunning 63 to set the clubhouse target and share top spot at 16 under.
Wiesberger made excellent par saves on the 12th and 17th, and nearly hit the pin with his approach to the last, but was forced to settle for a par and a trip back up the 18th with Fleetwood for a play-off. He went on to put his approach to five feet and roll in the putt for a birdie and victory on debut at the tournament.
The 31 year old has not missed a cut since the 2016 US PGA Championship, producing seven top-five finishes in that time, and his first victory in a play-off after losing the previous three times.
Ross Fisher held a share of the lead stood on the 18th tee, but a three-putt bogey saw him fall out of the play-off into a share of third at 15 under par alongside France’s Grégory Bourdy, a shot clear of South African Dylan Frittelli, American David Lipsky and Paraguay’s Fabrizio Zanotti.
After picking up his fourth European Tour title, Wiesberger said: “I’m feeling a bit relieved now I have to say. I’ve had a stretch of really good events the last couple of months, and it’s really nice to have a trophy again. We have really good players out here, all up for it, playing well and throwing a lot at me. At the end of the day I’m just glad I got myself into the spot where I could play for the title.
“Tommy has had a great day today, and I’m just grateful to make that one shot when I needed to. I just wanted to get off to a good start and show them that I’m up for it and I did, scrapped around a little bit, had a couple of near misses with good looks at it early on. It could have gotten to me but I stayed calm, played on decently.”
Fleetwood, who was coming back to Europe after missing the cut at the Masters, said: “I’ve played well all week and I was really disappointed, it was stressing me out that I couldn’t really get anything in the hole. Today, just a few putts went in and I kept it going all the way through and it was a good time to shoot a 63. As a goal I wanted to be one under for every three holes, that was 66 and if I beat that I thought I’ll have had a good day and a good week.”