Julien Guerrier overcame Jorge Campillo to claim his maiden DP World Tour title on his 230th attempt after an epic nine-hole playoff at the Andalucia Masters.
The Frenchman began the day 19-under for the tournament following rounds of 62, 72 and 63 to leave him tied at the top of the leaderboard with Campillo, with the gap to third a healthy three shots.
Guerrier set the early pace with birdies at the second, third and fifth to open up a two-shot lead after Campillo could only birdie the second.
Campillo then brought the pair back level with birdies of his own at the sixth and seventh, and they still couldnât be separated at the turn.
Campillo, playing in his homeland, then opened up a two-shot lead on the 10th with his fourth birdie of the day as Guerrier pulled his tee shot on the dogleg par-4 and landed on top of a wall that marks the line between safe and penalty stroke.
With OB the other side of the wall, it was playable for Guierrier, so he chopped his ball off the top of the wall and back into the rough but ultimately still bogeyed the hole.
At that point, Campillo was yet to make a bogey all week, so it looked odds-on that Guerrier would need to rely on a quick recovery and his ability to get his challenge back on track.
Jorge Campillo pushed Guerrier all the way, but to no avail
(Image credit: Getty Images)
He did just that with back-to-back birdies on the 11th and 12th, and he was helped even more when Campillo found the water on the 12th leading to the elusive bogey that had taken 66 holes to arrive.
That put Guerrier back into the lead, but he let Campillo off the hook on the 13th with a double bogey, and Campillo extended his lead with a birdie at the 14th.
With a two-shot lead and just four holes to play, it looked like Campilloâs title to lose given his consistency through the week, but then his second and third bogeys of the tournament arrived on the 15th and 18th to see the two into a playoff.
Julien Guerrier and Jorge Campillo couldn’t be separated after the first 18 holes of the day
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Given the pairâs inability to break too far free of one another over the first 18 holes, it was perhaps likely that a lengthy period of extra holes was in the offing, but surely no one expected the epic battle to follow.
The pair tried three times to…
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