Schwartzel wraps up emphatic win
South African Charl Schwartzel completed his fantastic finish to 2012 with an astonishing 12-stroke victory on home soil at the Alfred Dunhill Championship today.
The third biggest winning margin in European Tour history was achieved at Leopard Creek a week after last year’s US Masters champion won in Thailand by 11 shots.
Only Tiger Woods and Ernie Els, who won the 2000 US Open and 2005 Asian Open by 15 and 13 respectively, have left the best of the rest trailing so far behind in the circuit’s 40-year history.
Schwartzel, 10 clear with a round to play, added a three-under-par 69 either side of a two-hour thunderstorm delay to take his eighth Tour title – five of them in South Africa – with a 24-under-par total.
In the Thailand Championship he was 25 under, and for the past five weeks - they started with finishes of fifth, third and second – he is a staggering 84 under.
France’s Gregory Bourdy, his closest challenger for virtually the entire weekend, took a double-bogey seven on the final hole and that elevated Swede Kristoffer Broberg, four times a winner on the Challenge Tour last season, into second place.
Bourdy shared third with Scotland’s Scott Jamieson, who last Sunday captured the Nelson Mandela Championship in Durban, defending champion Garth Mulroy and England’s Andy Sullivan a month after he came through the Tour qualifying school.
