Staff WriterIt took Adrien Saddier 200 starts, a steely temperament, and one of the more dramatic back nines in recent Italian Open memory to finally lay his hands on a DP World Tour trophy.
And what a place to do it—Argentario Golf Club, a coastal brute with enough teeth to chew up a lesser player’s confidence and spit it into the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Saddier, the Frenchman with more comebacks than a Rolling Stones farewell tour, found himself three shots adrift of fellow countryman Martin Couvra at the turn.
At that point, it looked like another long week. But the Italian Open has a way of testing your patience and your pulse—and Saddier had both under control.
He birdied 10. He birdied 11. Just like that, the gap was down to one, and the comeback was on.
Three holes later, after a pair of tidy birdies at 13 and 14, he took the outright lead. Then came the 16th—Couvra blinked with a bogey, Saddier didn’t, carding his fifth birdie of the back nine to open a three-shot cushion.
Couvra tried to fight back, holing a final birdie at 18 to trim the margin to two, but Saddier was unflappable.
He tapped in for par, calmly scribbled a closing 66 on his card, and marched into the clubhouse as the Italian Open champion—four under for the day, 30 strokes for the back nine, and finally, finally, a winner on the DP World Tour.
His triumph also marked him as the 14th first-time winner on the 2025 Race to Dubai. Not bad for a man whose last professional win came nearly a decade ago at the 2016 Challenge de España, back when trousers were tighter and TikTok was still a sound a clock made.
“Winning on the DP World Tour has been my dream,” Saddier said. “I’ve worked really hard for this moment. To do it at such a historic event as the Italian Open makes it even more special.”
Couvra didn’t leave empty-handed. The 21-year-old prodigy, who broke through last month at the Turkish Airlines Open, was awarded the Memorial Franco Chimenti trophy—given to the best-performing player born after January 1, 2000, in honour of the late Italian Golf Federation president.
Both men also secured golden tickets to The 153rd Open via the Open Qualifying Series—proof that form, resilience, and a bit of flair can open doors that rankings alone won’t.
Behind them, England’s Dan Bradbury and Scotland’s Calum Hill shared the bronze on ten under par, with France’s Clément Sordet and Germany’s Nicolai von Dellingshausen tucked one shot behind at minus nine.
In a tournament rich with history and drama, the 2025 Italian Open delivered once again—not with pyrotechnics, but with pure, old-fashioned competitive grit. And for Adrien Saddier, it was a victory not just for persistence, but for finally finishing the job.
