SPANISH VICTORY PUTS ENGLAND'S WILLETT ON TOP OF THE WORLD
English Champion Daniel Willett has moved into the top spot
in the R&A World Amateur Golf Ranking following his victory
in the Spanish Amateur last weekend, ending US Walker Cup
player Rickie Fowler's 24-week run as the World No 1.
Willett, the Yorkshire-based 20 year old, claimed the Spanish
title with a 5 and 3 victory over Spain’s Jordi Garcia
Pinto in the 36-hole final at Pals on Sunday.
The win means he now holds four significant titles, the Yorkshire
Championship and the South of England Stroke Play Championship
as well as the English and Spanish titles.
“I’m happy to be No.1. It proves all the hard
work is paying off,” he says. “I’d been
second for so long but that was only because I didn’t
get the chance to play an event. When I got that chance I
won in my first outing of the year.
“The week in Spain was a bit strange. I wasn’t
hitting the ball that well early on. I was struggling off
the tee, firing it into the trees, but I managed to recover
well and not to drop many shots. When I did hit the fairways
I made a lot of birdies. The course was good for scoring and
I had a good few birdies throughout the week.”
Willett is also heading the PING/EGU Order of Merit at this
early stage of the year so is on course for a ‘double’.
“I’m just going to try to play well. If I do
that the results will come and so will the points on the merit
tables,” he adds. “It will be difficult to stay
on top of the World list because the Americans are playing
more than we are at this time. We don’t get to play
many competitive events here until May so I’ll just
keep going to the gym, work on a few new things and try to
keep everything in good shape.”
Willett, from Rotherham, who spent 18 weeks as the WAGR No.
2, won the South of England and English titles in successive
weeks last summer before making his Walker Cup debut, where
he held the then World No. 1 Colt Knost to a halved match
in the final singles, and then cut short his scholarship in
Alabama and returned home to play full-time amateur golf.
He heads the WAGR on 1276.74 points, ahead of Fowler with
1107.44. Seven English players appear in the WAGR top 50,
making England the second most successful country after the
USA and the top European country before Sweden with four top
50 players.
Willett’s victory in Spain means that the Iberian title
resides in England for a third successive year after similar
triumphs by Sam Hutsby and fellow Yorkshireman John Parry.
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