Lahiri Victorious in Malaysian Open


India's Anirban Lahiri carded rounds of 10-under 72 and 68 over the weekend at Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club to rally past Berndt Wiesberger and win the European Tour's Maybank Malaysian Open.

After his 10-birdie outing on Saturday, the 27-year-old from Bangalore got off to a hot start with four birdies in his first five holes Sunday before going the rest of the way even-par.

But the early run was enough for Lahiri to finish at 16-under 272, a stroke ahead of 54-hole leader Wiesberger, who closed with a disappointing 74.

"I don't think it's sunk in just yet," said Lahiri after his first European Tour title. "But I'm pretty sure when it hits home it's going to be a really happy moment for me. I think I've got a bad habit of making it hard for myself, but I'm happy I got over the line, as ugly as it was towards the end."

In addition to ensuring his exemption on the European circuit, the victory gives Lahiri a good chance to move into the top-50 in the world rankings and earn a spot in the Masters this April. "The Masters is definitely one of my targets. I don't know how far I'll move up, but I'm pretty confident now with this win I should have a pretty good chance."

It was tough ending for Wiesberger, who with his second place has accrued four top-10 finishes in a row on the European Tour's "Desert Swing." The two-time winner also got off to a good start Sunday with birdies on his first two holes. But a double-bogey on the par-5 fifth and three bogeys - including a damaging one on the par-4 17th - against just one birdie the rest of the way dropped him a stroke out of the playoff.

"It hasn't quite finished the way I intended to," said Wiesberger, who came into the last round with a two-stroke cushion. "After the hiccup on five, I didn't hit it anywhere near as well as the last 15 rounds. It's tough to say, but it is what it is and unfortunately I beat myself out of it today.

"I hit a bad lay-up, flew a lot on the downhill lie and my mind wasn't there. I hit a bad shot and needed to miss it long and take par and get on with it. It's disappointing. I just didn't trust my swing enough which was good the last couple of weeks. It's still a good week, and congratulations to Anirban who played a lovely round today. I will try again."

Ending up three strokes behind Lahiri were Spain's Alejandro Canizares (74) and England's Paul Waring (73). Sharing fifth at 277 were France's Gregory Bourdy (69), Canada's Richard T. Lee (71), defending champion Lee Westwood (75) of England and American Paul Peterson (277).

For complete scoring details, visit http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/season=2015/tournamentid=2015008/leaderboard/index.html.