Grace Caps off Wire-to-Wire Win in Alfred Dunhill Championship


Branden Grace closed with a 4-under 68 to win the Alfred Dunhill Championship going away. The full-field European Tour event took place at Leopard Creek Country in Malelane, South Africa.

Grace, who opened with a 10-under 62, subsequently posted rounds of 66 and 72 to enter Sunday's final round with only a one-shot lead over Denmark's Lucas Bjerregaard.

But Grace, a 26-year-old from Pretoria, finished strong with six birdies - including four on the back nine - and two bogeys to reach 20-under 268, seven strokes ahead of fellow South African Louis Oosthuizen (69) and Englishman Andrew Johnston (73).

The victory was the first for Grace since his stellar four-win 2012 season. "It's special to win it wire-to-wire, more so because it's in front of a local crowd," he told the European Tour's website. "It was a pretty flawless round today and the perfect way to finish off an incredible tournament - a great week in the office.

"It's been a long year, a hard, year but now it's a fairytale ending just before Christmas. One of the main things this week has been the driving; I just put a new driver in the bag in Dubai and that's been the key this week."

Tied for fourth at 278 were South Africa's Trevor Fisher Jr. (69) and England's Danny Willett (76). Ending up 11 shots behind Grace were Scotland's David Drysdale (69) and Italy's Francesco Molinari (76).

Bjerregaard had a nightmare final round. The 23-year-old Dane posted with a 17-over 89 that started out with just one birdie, two bogeys and a triple on the par-3 seventh to make the turn in 4-over 39. The par-37 back nine was much worse as he shot a 13-over 50 and dropped into a tie for 49th at 2-over 290.

For all the scores, visit http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/season=2015/tournamentid=2014096/leaderboard/index.html.