Westwood gifts it to Goosen

Lee Westwood made it easy for Retief Goosen to pick up the €940,000 top prize at the Nedbank Challenge in Sun City.

Thirty-one-year-old Westwood started the final round five under par and one shot ahead of South African Goosen but slumped to an eight-over-par 80 and tumbled down the leaderboard into a tie for sixth with Jay Haas.

Westwood has not won since September 2003’s Dunhill Links Championship and his bid to end that 15-month title drought ended with a triple bogey seven on the eighth, a double bogey six on the 18th, five bogeys and just two birdies.

Goosen knew Westwood had blown his chance at the eighth.

Westwood was wayward with his drive and had to chip out sideways, found a greenside bunker with his next and took two shots to escape.

“The danger holes here are the third, eighth and 11th and Lee got caught at eight,” said Goosen.

“After he dropped those shots I knew I would only really need to play it safe as nobody was really going to make a charge on this course.”

Goosen carded a 69 to finish on seven under, six clear of compatriot Ernie Els and Australian Stuart Appleby, who shared second place. Chris DiMarco and Jim Furyk were joint fourth on level par.

Spain’s Sergio Garcia finished last, a closing 78 giving last year’s champion an aggregate score of 15 over at the Gary Player Country Club.

“Make no mistake it was tough out there, but going along the back nine I realised that no-one was in a position to push me,” said Goosen.

“This is the toughest I have seen this course play and the organisers really did their jobs well.”