Antoine

Rozner

The Frenchman stormed out of the gate with three birdies and an eagle before the turn. He traded one birdie with one bogey on his way into the clubhouse. “Unbelievable. It’s a tough game. We practise so hard all year long and a win is a win and I’m so glad I got this done.” His closest competitor was Alfredo Garcia-Heredia who posted 14-under 274. This will go in the books as his third career win on the DP World Tour, first since the 2021 Qatar Masters.

The 29-year-old Frenchman stayed steady over four rounds at Infinitum’s Lakes Course in Tarragona, shooting 67-68-66-67 with seven bogeys and 19 birdies. Rozner, ranked No. 153 in the OWGR, has made six cuts in eight DPWT starts this season and is riding a wave of five straight. His two DPWT wins have come over the last two seasons, with his breakthrough victory coming at the 2020 Golf in Dubai Championship. He captured his second title just three months later, at the 2021 Commercial Bank Qatar Masters, and Rozner finished T-45 in August at the Tokyo Olympics. He’ll stay in Spain for this week’s inaugural Catalunya Championship at PGA Catalunya Golf and Wellness in Girona.

The 28-year-old Frenchman started his title defense on a solid note, going bogey free over the first two days with rounds of 65-64 and held a one-shot lead heading into the weekend at Jumeirah Golf Estates’ Fire Course. But Rozner faced an uneven Saturday, carding a birdie on the first hole and eagle on the third before making double at the fifth. He finished with a 69, leaving himself one shot off the pace on Sunday. Rozner was 2 under through 14 holes in his final round before disaster struck again with a miscue off the tee at 15, which led to a double. He rebounded with two birdies over his last three holes to post a 2-under 70. On the season, he’s made 16 cuts in 20 starts with three top 10s including a win at the Qatar Masters in March. Rozner made birdie on his 72nd hole at Education City GC in Doha to edge Guido Migliozzi, Darren Fichardt and Gaganjeet Bhullar by a shot. The world No. 119 will make his second in the season-ending DP World Tour Championship (T-36 in 2020) and arrives at Jumeirah’s Earth Course at 39th in the Race to Dubai.

Last year at the Jumeirah Golf Estates’ Fire Course, the 28-year-old Rozner carded four rounds in the 60s including an 8-under 64 in the final round to finish at 25-under 263 and win by two strokes over fellow countryman Mike Vera-Lorenzo, Italy’s Francesco Laporta and Englishmen Matt Wallace and Andy Sullivan. “It pretty much all started here,” he told media Wednesday. “Last year I was having a great season and to win here was just a really nice way to finish the season. After that, everything started really well for me.” Rozner followed up with his second win in March at the Qatar Masters, where he made birdie on his 72nd hole to win by one over Guido Migliozzi, Darren Fichardt and Gaganjeet Bhullar. He also secured a notable win over Bryson DeChambeau in the first round of the WGC-Match Play, also in March, and represented France in the Tokyo Olympics, where he finished T-45. “I’ll definitely use the experience I gained from last year, as far as being really aggressive on this course, because there will be low scores,” he said. “Winning is not easy but when you’ve got it done once, and for me twice, it’s just a completely different feeling. You know how to win, and it will help me a lot for the rest of my career. On the season, Rozner has made 15 cuts in 19 starts with a win and one other top 10 and stands 42nd in the Race to Dubai.

Coupled with the win and a tie between 21-seed Tommy Fleetwood and 45-seed Si Woo Kim, the 28-year-old is the front-runner and will stare down Fleetwood on Thursday. Making his PGA TOUR debut and arriving off his second European Tour title (in his last six starts) two weeks ago at the CB Qatar Masters, which got him into the field (World No. 64), the Missouri-Kansas City alum never trailed against the reigning U.S. Open champ DeChambeau. After trading hole wins at 2 and 3, Rozner took a 1 UP lead with birdie-2 at 4 (from 12'0") and never looked back. He went 2 UP thru 9 with another 12-footer for birdie-3, 3 UP thru 12 with a 2-putt birdie at the par 5, before DeChambeau battled back to 1 DOWN with a hole concession 13 and birdie win at 16, just his second birdie on the day. Now on the par-4 last, Rozner, who also won two times on the Challenge Tour in 2019, closed the SMU product out with birdie from 7'1" after a “super-high” approach up and over the trees from the right rough. “Very happy. I was trying to put a solid round of golf, and I think I did that pretty well, especially on the front. Didn’t make any mistakes really on the front, and being 3 UP after 12 holes I think was a good enough lead. I was actually feeling a little bit nervous at some point on the back nine, but I think, yeah, being 3 UP was good enough.”

A bad beat? In some ways. Rozner birdied the par-5 18th three times in the playoff and while the first of those helped shake off Renato Paratore, it wasn’t enough after Hojgaard made eagle. The Frenchman’s main regret will not be making birdie there in regulation play when a par breaker would have given him the title. He chose to lay up and couldn’t wedge it up and down. However, this was just his sixth European Tour start and, overall, he handled himself impressively in the final round. The signs didn’t look good when he bogeyed 1 and 3 but, from there, Rozner worked his way back to the top of the board with birdies at 5, 7, 10, 11 and 14. He’ll be one to keep a close eye on in 2020.

The Frenchman burst from the blocks making a third birdie-4 of the week at the second hole and maintained the pressure with an eagle-2 at the par-4 fifth and further red numbers at the seventh and ninth. He opened the back nine with six straight pars before tripping up at the 16th. No matter: he rebounded with birdies to close at the 17th and 18th holes to join Calum Hill and Thomas Detry in a three-way tie for the lead, one clear of Rasmus Hojgaard and Sihwan Kim, both also seeking a first victory at this level. Brandon Stone and Renato Paratore, two back in a tie for sixth are the closest players to the lead with wins under their belts. Rozner has held three Challenge Tour 54-hole leads, winning the once. He failed to turn one of three Alps Tour similar advantages into wins during the 2017 season. “I’m not going to lie,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to tomorrow and hopefully get that win. I need to shoot something really low.”

The Frenchman has now played six rounds on the Indian Ocean island and is yet to need more than 70 blows. He was T7 on his European Tour debut 12 months ago at Anahita and now at Heritage his fondness for the place is maintained. The 26-year-old started on the back nine and swapped birdies at the 12th and 14th with a bogey at the 17th. The front nine had an early hiccup (bogey at the first), but then he added red numbers at the second, fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth. He opened the season with T36 last week in South Africa, a fourth top 40 in five ET career start and another beckons. Late in the day he was one of five players T4 and two swings back of the leader Calum Hill.

The 26-year-old Frenchman is currently in a seven-way tie for third with the afternoon session in play. His wild ride today featured an eagle on a par 4 and bogeys on two of the par 5s. It all began with a bang as he went birdie-birdie-eagle at Nos. 2-4 to hit -4 after 4 although he gave two of those gains back with bogeys on the par-5 7th and par-4 9th. Rozner hit the birdie trail again with a trio of red circles at 12, 13 and 14 before adding another at 17 but there was a final twist as he took six swishes at 18 for a walk-off bogey. For the second year running, he’s nicely placed to have a strong week.

The Frenchman is enjoying his debut at Leopard Creek CC and has every chance of making a fourth top 25 finish in just five starts on the European Tour – hopefully a second a top ten. The Frenchman is level with Adrian Otaegui, Garrick Porteous and Jaco Van Zyl; they are one back of T4, three behind T2 and six blows off the leader Pablo Larrazabal. Early on he had two birdie-bogey exchanges at the second and third, then sixth and seventh. Thereafter it was all one way traffic. He ended both nines with red numbers and in-between had a hat-trick of circled numbers from the 13th.