Hedblom ends long wait for victory in Malaysia
BY Bruce Young | Asian Tour | 2007 Malaysian Open | General | 11 Feb 2007
Peter Hedblom ended the frustrating run of near misses he had incurred since his last European Tour victory more than ten years ago when he held on to win the co-sanctioned Maybank Malaysian Open at the Saujana Golf Club near Kuala Lumpur. He has been runner-up three times since that win in Morocco in 1996 and there have been two top threes and numerous top tens but he has been unable to get across the line.
This week it again appeared unlikely early in the event when he went to seven over through three holes of his second round. Two eagles and another birdie in his last 12 holes of round two had him well inside the cut line and when he added a third round of 68 he had moved into contention, albeit three behind the third round leaders, Marcus Higley and Ricardo Gonzalez.
Hedblom hardly put a foot wrong throughout his final round, in fact so much so that when he reached the par five final hole he had established a two shot lead. A very short missed putt for par was of little consequence as he managed to hold out Frenchman Jean Francois Lucquin who had also bogeyed the last nearly an hour earlier.
Hedblom’s career has been curtailed to some extent by injury caused when playing ice hockey in late 2001. It took nearly twelve months for him to return to full fitness and this victory brings to a close a long battle to return to the winners list. Hedblom is a player good enough to have recorded a round of 65 on his way to an 11th place at Pinehurst during the 2005 US Open and in doing so created a course record but things have not always been so good.
Jean Francois Lucquin bogeyed the last but continued on with some of the form he showed at the recent Abu Dhabi event when he finished 5th. He went so very close to his maiden European Tour victory this week. The 28-year-old Frenchman actually held the outright lead as he played the last hole but three putted for bogey to open the door for Hedblom.
Spaniard Ignacio Garrido recovered from a poor opening round of 76 to finish in a share of third with Simon Dyson whose roller coaster ride through the middle of the final round would cost him dearly.
The best of the Australians was David Bransdon who finished 11th, Gavin Flint was 16th, Gary Simpson 27th, Unho Park, Terry Pikadaris, Marcus Both and Matthew Millar 34th, with Adam Groom and Kane Webber 49th.
The European and Asian Tours move to Jakarta for next week’s Indonesian Open with a field considerably weakened from this week. The budgets for appearance money are clearly not in place along with the fact that the event falls the week before the Accenture Match Play and, as a result, many of the world’s leading players are either in, or this week on their way to, the USA.
