David GonzalezFour shots behind at the start and three clear by the finish, Sebastian Friedrichsen produced a spectacular closing 62 to claim his first HotelPlanner Tour victory at 28 under par.
For nine holes, Sebastian Friedrichsen looked like a young golfer trying to chase down an experienced leader. By the time he reached the clubhouse, everybody else was doing the chasing.
The 23-year-old Dane fired a final-round 62 at the Open de Portugal, nine under par and emphatic enough to turn a four-shot deficit into a three-shot victory over Marc Warren. At 28 under for the week, Friedrichsen had his maiden HotelPlanner Tour title and, rather conveniently, his best golf had arrived just when the Road to Mallorca was beginning to get serious.
There are tidy little victories, and then there are Sundays when somebody puts six back-nine birdies on the card and makes the arithmetic largely irrelevant.
This was very much the latter.
Friedrichsen refuses to let a slow start matter
The opening hole offered Friedrichsen nothing.
Despite the par five playing as the second-easiest hole of the week, he failed to make birdie and remained four behind playing partner Warren. It could easily have become the sort of missed opportunity that feels considerably larger once a leader starts disappearing over the horizon.
Instead, Friedrichsen birdied the second and third.
Another gain followed before the turn, keeping him firmly in the contest without yet suggesting the glorious nonsense that was about to unfold on the back nine.
He knew precisely where he stood.
“It feels great,” Friedrichsen said. “I’ve been playing out here for a while, so it feels amazing to finally get it over the line. I’m very happy.
“Obviously I knew where we were standing before I teed off, and I kind of knew all the way so I knew what was going on and we had a good battle out there.”
The battle, as it happened, did not survive the afternoon intact.
Six back-nine birdies change everything
Friedrichsen began pressing harder with consecutive birdies at the 11th and 12th, but the decisive sequence began two holes later.
At the par-three 14th, caught between clubs, he chose the longer option and took something off it. The shot nearly went in.
The birdie did.
It became the first of four in succession.
“I didn’t hit my wedges and irons as good today as the other rounds. On that little hole [14] it was in-between clubs, but it’s always best for me to take the longer club and hit it shorter, I did that and it almost went in.”
There is something rather pleasing about a golfer admitting that his iron play was not quite as good on the day he shot 62. Golf remains a magnificently unreasonable game.
From the 14th, though, Friedrichsen gave it very little room for argument.
Four consecutive birdies carried him clear of Warren and transformed a tight final-round contest into a procession towards a first HotelPlanner Tour victory.
A first title after waiting for the game to click
The size of the breakthrough matters almost as much as the fact of it.
Friedrichsen had been waiting for the pieces to align, convinced his golf had been heading in the right direction without seeing the results fully reflect it.
“It’s a weird game right. I feel like the game has been trending the last few weeks, but it hadn’t really clicked at all.
“This week was my week and it’s nice when it happens, but I’ve just been trying to stay patient and I kind of had an idea something nice was going to happen.”
Something nice, in this case, was a closing 62 and a three-shot win.
For a player seeking his first title on the Road to Mallorca, it would be difficult to design a more emphatic way of removing that particular question.
Warren had begun the final round with the advantage and ultimately finished runner-up, but Friedrichsen’s acceleration left no room for anybody to respond.
Open de Portugal victory transforms Road to Mallorca position
The win also arrives at a particularly useful moment.
Friedrichsen climbed 27 places into the top ten of the Road to Mallorca Rankings, placing him in a significantly stronger position as the season moves towards its conclusion.
The top 15 has been his target throughout the year.
“It’s a great time to start playing well and making results. The top 15 has been the goal all year so now I’m in a better position than I was before this week, but I’ll try and get to go to the last tournaments the same as if I hadn’t won this week.”
That may be the sensible approach. It is also easier to say while holding a trophy.
Friedrichsen now has evidence that the golf he believed was coming can stand up under Sunday pressure — and not merely stand up, but sprint away from the field.
Sale fires 61 as chasing pack runs out of road
Friedrichsen’s 62 was not even the lowest round of the day.
Julien Sale matched the low round of the week with a 61 to reach 24 under par and finish alone in third. Under most circumstances, a Sunday 61 ought to result in a little more disturbance at the top of the leaderboard.
Friedrichsen had other ideas.
Matthew Southgate and MJ Daffue completed the top five at 23 under, while Warren’s second-place finish came three strokes behind the champion.
The HotelPlanner Tour now pauses for a week before resuming in the United Arab Emirates at the Abu Dhabi Challenge from September 30 to October 3.
Friedrichsen will arrive there in rather different circumstances from those in which he began the Open de Portugal: a winner, a top-ten player in the Road to Mallorca Rankings and, after a closing 62, considerably harder for the rest of the field to ignore.
