Graeme Storms to victory at French Open

BY Bruce Young | European PGA Tour | 2007 Open de France | Round Four | 02 Jul 2007

England’s Graeme Storm today won his first European Tour event after nearly seven years on Tour when he edged his way clear of a logjam of players all looking to win the lucrative first prize of €666,000 at the French Open.

Storm first joined the European Tour in 2001 but life on the professional road proved difficult for him in those early years, so much so that he was forced to work in menial jobs just to pay the bills. He found his way back to the European Tour via the Challenge Tour in 2005 and has been a much more accomplished player since.

He had been playing reasonably well in 2007, including top tens in Austria and Portugal, but to win an event of this stature and prize-money, effectively sets him up for several years in Europe.

So many players had their chances over the closing stages of the championship but only Storm was able to avoid the bogey that would cost the others their chance of victory.

Storm moved ahead with his last birdie of the day at the 14th to be at seven under and held the lead briefly on his own before Colin Montgomerie hit a superb chip from a difficult angle at that same hole 30 minutes later to set up a birdie to join him in the lead. No sooner had Montgomerie joined the lead then he went backwards with two consecutive bogeys and his challenge was gone.

Soren Hansen appeared to have blown his chances with two double bogeys early in his round and at that point was back at four under and his chances looked slim. He stopped the bleeding with a series of pars before birdies at the 14th and 16th had him knocking on the door of Storm’s lead.

Thomas Bjorn appeared to be a serious threat to win when he moved to 6 under through seven holes of today’s round but that one extra birdie proved elusive and when he bogeyed the 17th his chance was gone. Still it was a significant improvement for Bjorn after a year which had seen him finish inside the top ten only twice in 14 starts prior to this week.

Simon Khan, Colin Montgomerie and Damien McGrane shared third with Bjorn while Jyoti Randhawa and Germany’s Martin Kaymer, who further highlighted his tremendous potential, finished 7th.

The best of the Australasians was Michael Campbell who finally got things going in the right direction with a final round of 67 that included a bogey at the 17th. He finished 33rd making up 22 places with his final round effort.

Marcus Fraser finished 50th and was the best of the two Australians to make the cut while O’Malley was 60th.

The European Tour now heads to Ireland for the Smurfit Kappa European Open at the K Club.