Khan claims dream success

Six months after his worst-ever feeling in golf England’s Simon Khan woke up today to discover his best-ever moment was not just a dream.

From the depths of 471st in the world the 37-year-old from Essex really did win the European Tour’s flagship BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth yesterday.

On his wife Lesley’s birthday – all he has bought so far is a card – Khan really beat five of the game’s top 10 and really did win more than £637,000 (€737,000).

For a player who had only one top-10 finish all last season and had to make a 10th trip to the Tour qualifying school it was truly life-changing stuff.

“I love the Tour so much and to lose your card ... that was the worst I’ve ever felt,” he said. “This has got to be the best, without a doubt.”

Nobody in the history of the event had ever won from seven behind with a round to go, but while overnight leader Chris Wood stumbled to a 77 – as did his nearest challenger Robert Karlsson – Khan shot a four-under-par 67.

A closing 20-foot birdie putt, which hung on the back edge before dropping, took him one ahead of Swede Fredrik Andersson Hed, but left him level with Luke Donald.

The Ryder Cup star still had the two closing par fives to come, but driving into the trees on the first of them led to a double-bogey seven and, needing an eagle to tie on the controversial new 18th, his pitch just failed to make it to the hole before spinning back.

As well as the money, Khan now has a five-year Tour exemption and a place in the next three Open Championships. He is also in position to give his wife a proper birthday present.

“I don’t know what she wants, but I said we’re going to go stay up in London for a night and go to Harvey Nichols or something like that and let her loose.”

Their five-year-old daughter Ruby is in for a good time too, but the first decision Khan had to make last night was whether to play in today’s 36-hole US Open qualifier at Walton Heath.

He was undecided as he left Wentworth, but knew the chance to play the event at Pebble Beach might not come along again in his career.

“There’s not going to be anything much bigger than that. I think if you stop dreaming of going there and winning those events you might as well stop really.”

He is suddenly in contention for a Ryder Cup debut too, of course.

Khan won the Wales Open at Celtic Manor – this October’s cup venue, although not the exact same course – in 2004 and was runner-up in the 2006 PGA.

Both were cup years and he added: “You can’t not think about it.”

From 153rd on this year’s money list – only the top 115 keep their cards, so that was becoming a worry again – he is suddenly up to seventh.

Living proof that in golf it takes only one week to make it a great year.

As for Donald and Wood, they were left to ponder what went wrong.

Joint runner-up Donald, still outside an automatic qualifying cup place, said of his “horrible” penultimate hole drive: “I just blocked it unfortunately and got what I deserved.”

Wood, who dropped to joint sixth, stated: “Nothing really seemed to go at all. After a few hours of that, demoralising.

“I said to my caddie I don’t know what I actually can learn because I didn’t hit that many bad shots.”