Henrik Stenson Wins His 2nd Race to Dubai Title

He bounced back with a tough pitch to save par, three birdies and walked off with the lead over Billy Horschel, Camilo Villegas and C.T. Pan.

His compatriot Tyrrell Hatton (67) was second at 272, with South Africa’s Charl Schwartzel (67) third at 274.

Stenson won his first Race to Dubai title in 2013.

While the 40-year old was making moves towards topping the season’s rankings, France’s Victor Dubuisson fired himself into contention for the tournament win with an eight-under-par round to lead by one shot after 54 holes.

“Yeah, long game is not the way we want it, but I m hanging in there, fighting”.

Dubuisson’s third round featured an eagle and seven birdies on a day when play was delayed 50 minutes because of fog.

“It wasn’t my best day. Hopefully, I can build on this”.

Having started his 2016 season with a second place behind Marc Leishman in the Nedbank Golf Challenge and joint third in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship, it was not until June that he first tasted victory, winning the BMW International Open in Munich with a three-stroke victory at Gut Lärchenhof.

“It’s annoying when you’re actually hitting a lot of good golf shots.I had a four footer for birdie on the last, a seven footer on 17 and two more great chances on 13 and 15 and blew them all past the hole”.

Then the questions got a little more personal. “It shouldn’t happen (the missed putt) but it can happen”, he said.

“I’m excited about it”.

“It’s been a long year, and I haven’t felt this good for a while. Now I feel this win gives me the confidence to push further and further and see what we can do next season”. “I made a lucky bogey on the next hole, so it kind of set it up”. I thought, ‘that’s actually not too bad, I don’t mind laughing about this.’ Then he got on to some other stuff and I thought: ‘Oh, Christ!’ “I m happy where I am after two rounds”, the Italian said.

Defending champion Rory McIlroy shot a 4-under 68 and was frustrated he could not go any lower after a superb round of ball-striking. “A few people used that excuse, and I jumped on the bandwagon”. I was mentally very flat, still in holiday mode and not quite switched on to what I needed to do. I sort of just tried to hold onto his coattails during that front nine, Henrik probably had more chances on the front nine than I did to try and really make some headway. “I flared my five-iron right and I’m standing there thinking ‘Is it going in the bunker or flying over the bunker, ‘ and next thing I see it go into the crowd and hit someone”.