Golf Update: Europeans win the Royal Trophy
The European team led by Colin Montgomerie has won the fifth edition of the Royal Trophy taking place at the Black Mountain Golf Club in Thailand. After a disappointing day on Saturday, the Asians were pretty strong going into the singles matches on Sunday.
Losing all the foursome matches yesterday, the Europeans fought back by wining six of the eight singles and hence retaining the Royal Trophy.
The Spanish Pablo Martin was the lucky player who got to hole the winning putt and seal victory for the European team. Going into the final round, the Europeans were trailing by four points whereas Asians on the other hand just needed two and a half points
to attain the Trophy. Looks like the Asian team gave in to the pressure of the well polished Europeans.
This is fourth time Europeans have won the Royal Trophy. The team, led by Colin Montgomerie, was surely confident going into the event. Their confidence was mainly due to the captaincy of Monty, who was the mastermind behind the 2010 European Victory in
the Ryder Cup. With the Royal Trophy resembling Ryder Cup format, the Europeans were confident they would win this time as well.
The Europeans won from a margin of 2 points, 9-7. This is better than last year, where the team won by the smallest margin possible. Last year, the Asians lost 8.5-7.5 and were determined to do well this time.
Today, in the Singles Matches, Peter Hanson defeated Liang Wenchong 7-6. Colin, who was the captain and the player, really wanted to play against Wenchong. He had defeated Liang last year in the singles and was looking forward to doing so today as well.
Fredrik Andersson Hed defeated the Asian Yuta Ikeda 2-1 Whereas Rhys Davies beat Ryo Ishikawa 4-2. The captain, Montgomerie, defeated Kim-Kyung Tae 1 up and Martin emerged as the Royal Trophy hero after bating the Indian Jeev Milkha Singh 1 up.
Singh was the sole Indian player on the course and was recovering from a back injury. There was some doubt about Jeev appearing in the tournament but he was declared fit on the eve of the tournament. Being defeated last in the tournament, Singh must be very
disappointed that he wasn’t able to do anything for his team. All in all, this whole tournament depended on team effort and not just one person. In the Asian team, Noh Seung-Yul and Thongchai Jaidee were the only ones that didn’t lose the singles match.
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