Charley banishes the demons and it was a Magic Monday for Soomin Lee in China

Post by Sports Writer Derek Clements

IT TOOK five days to complete after countless storm delays, but Soomin Lee won't be worrying too much about that after winning the Shenzhen International at Genzon Golf Club.

He was one of 20 players who were unable to finish on Sunday and had to come back and complete the job. And guess what? There was a further delay, this time because of fog.

Lee and Lee Slattery had five holes to play, with Alexander Levy on the 13th and they had everything to play for, tied as they were on 14 under par. One shot back were Scott Hend, who managed to finish on Sunday, Joost Luiten and Brandon Stone.

A birdie on the 16th, followed by a superb eagle on the 17th, helped Lee sign for a closing 71 and clinch a two-shot victory on 16 under par.

It was the culmination of a meteoric rise for the 22 year old from Seoul, who at February's Maybank Championship Malaysia led the field by three shots heading into the final round, before suffering two double bogeys in the final three holes to eventually finish runner up.

In a share of second place were Luiten of the Netherlands and Stone, who both finished on 14 under par courtesy of a pair of four under par final rounds of 68

Lee had gone 52 holes without dropping a shot until the wheels came off in spectacular fashion when he took seven blows to complete the 17th hole in the third round. He promptly followed it with a bogey at the first hole in the final round and another double-bogey at the seventh to reach the turn in 39 shots. How do you cope with that when you are trying to land your first European Tour title? You birdie the 10th and 13th holes to get back a share of the lead - and then you curse the elements when you are forced off the course with five holes of the final round still to play because darkness has fallen in a tournament that has been dogged by bad weather.

Can you imagine anything worse than having to head back to your hotel, knowing you have to come back the next day to try to finish the job? Can you imagine trying to go to bed and sleep without thinking about the mistakes you made in an otherwise flawless performance? And can you imagine what it would mean to come back after that sleepless night and win that title?

Lee was thrilled. “I'm really happy. I was excited this weekend," he said. "My first European Tour win in just six events, it's really incredible. I am really happy and really proud of myself.

“I started on 14 and had a six-foot putt, but I made it. So I had confidence and then I made a good par save, before the birdie and the eagle.

“Yesterday I was actually really, really nervous. But I got a break overnight and then this morning, I felt really comfortable. I’m very happy with how my game is improving and I am really excited about the future. I'll just enjoy it now and I really, really want to play on the European Tour now. My goals now are of course to play the Major Championships, and hopefully win one someday, so I want to move into the top 50 in the world.”

Soomin Lee – make a note of the name because you are going to be hearing an awful lot more of it.

Valero Texas Open

Charley Hoffman produced a grandstand finish, holing a 10-foot downhill putt on the final green to win the Valero Texas Open by a shot from Patrick Reed.

Going into the final round Hoffman must have stood on the first tee and wondered what the day held in store for him. Time and again this season he has put himself into position to either win or come very close to doing so, and on every occasion he has come up short - his final-round average for 2016 is a dreadful 74.5 strokes and when you do that you do not win golf tournaments.

Reed, on the other hand, had enjoyed seven top-10 finishes going into this event. Both men started the day trailing Ricky Barnes but the 54-hole leader had a day to forget.

For Hoffman, this was the day when he banished memories of his final-round struggles from his mind for good. He played magnificently and was unlucky only to reach the turn in level par for the day, mixing one birdie and a bogey with seven pars. The 39-year-old then birdied the 11th and 14th to move to 11 under par, two ahead of Reed.

But Reed is a cussed competitor and he reduced the gap to a solitary shot with a birdie at the 15th. A terrific tee-shot at the par-three 16th seemed to have set him up for another, and with Hoffman in a horrible place at the back of the green it seemed that there might be a two-shot swing in Reed's favour. However, Hoffman produced a brilliant recovery and saved his par and Reed missed his eight-foot birdie try.

And so they moved to the 17th, a reachable par four, where both players chose to lay up. Reed played his approach first, striking his ball to six feet. Hoffman's reply was a stinker. He was 80 yards from the pin and hit his lob wedge fat, leaving himself a huge putt for birdie, but he was in three-putt territory.  Hoffman got out of jail when Reed missed again, and retained his lead by managing to two-putt for par.

It came down to the 18th, a par five measuring 595 yards that barely a single player had reached in two all week. It is a hole that is fraught with danger and Hoffman knew that a birdie would surely give him the win he so craved. Hoffman crushed is, straight down the middle, Reed was in the left rough, a bush not far ahead of him and a creek meandering its way up the fairway to the putting surface.

Would Reed have a flash at the green or would he pull out an iron? In the event, he decided that he could reach the required 278 yards with a driving iron. As he watched and waited to play, up on the green Chad Collins made his fifth birdie of the back nine to join him on 10 under.  Reed played a sensational shot that cleared the creek by a yard and rolled up to the front of the green. Hoffman, pumped with adrenalin, cleared the green and finished in a horrible place in the back bunker, with no room to work with.

It was Reed to play first and his chip finished six inches from the hole for a closing birdie to take him to 11 under. So Hoffman knew he needed to get up and down in two from the sand for victory. He barely made the green, leaving him with a 10-feet downhill putt - not the sort of shot you want when you have had so many close calls. The ball disappeared into the hole and Charley had his fourth PGA Tour victory.

"Being in contention every Sunday and not finishing it off is not me," Hoffman said. "I haven't enjoyed those final rounds, but what I have done today proves that I have a lot of heart, and I am thrilled to get the job done, I really am"

The day had begun with Luke Donald in a great position to win his first tournament on the PGA Tour since 2012, but it wasn't to be. The Englishman laboured to a 74 and a seven-under-par total of 281.

Collins was third and Barnes, Ryan Palmer, Kevin Chappell, Martin Piller and Billy Horschel tied for fourth on nine under.

Highlights 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zgML99H1CY