Louis Oosthuizen claimed back-to-back DP World Tour titles after coming out on top in a final-day battle at the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open.
The South African native entered the finale at Heritage La Reserve Golf Club clinging to a one-shot lead but the LIV Golf star saw it disappear quickly as playing partner Jacques P de Villiers, England’s Laurie Canter and Sebastian Soderberg all at one point staked a claim to joint first.
Amid a dramatic closing nine on the Indian Ocean course Oosthuizen designed, it was nip and tuck but, in the end, a 69 was enough to give the former Open champion a two-shot victory over Canter (-17).
De Villiers, Soderberg – who fired a low-round 63 – and England’s Daniel Brown finished T3 on 14 under, one clear of a third South African in Jayden Schaper.
With Oosthuizen’s second win in six days, LIV Golf players have incredibly won five of the DP World Tour’s six-stop ‘Opening Swing.’ Yet, because all five are officially canceled by the tour, Min Woo Lee, the only non-LIV winner, was thus crowned the “winner” of the ‘Opening Swing.’
Simply embarrassing.
“Golf is the strangest thing,” said Oosthuizen. “The last five weeks I’ve not done a lot with golf, I’ve played a few rounds and when I got to Leopard Creek I was working on a small little thing. I started hitting it really good and I know I’m putting well and then I just carried on with that momentum.
“I started off very poorly and that errant second shot on 16 made it interesting but I hit a few good shots coming in… I’m glad I held onto it.
“I’m glad I could pull this off this week, it’s sort of a dream come true being able to play a tournament on a golf course you helped design and end up winning it.
“This is the first event my daughters have been to where I won, this is very special.”
DP World Tour communications contributed to this report.
