Peter Uihlein Holds Off Fellow LIV Golfers To Win International Series Qatar And Top Season-Long Standings
The Range Goats GC player built on his overnight lead to cruise to a five-shot win at Doha Golf Club, ahead of Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen
Peter Uihlein claimed his second International Series win of the year on the Asian Tour, holding off the challenge of fellow LIV golfers Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen to ease home by five at Doha Golf Club in Qatar.
The Range Goats GC player began the final round one ahead of fellow American Zach Bauchou at the top of the leaderboard, with Schwartzel six off the lead and Oosthuizen five.
It was a relatively slow start for Uihlein, who, after making par on the opening two holes, suffered his first bogey of the day on the par 4 third. However, by the turn he had recovered well thanks to back-to-back birdies on the sixth and seventh.
For the man closest to Uihlein on the leaderboard at the start of the day, Bauchou, it was an even more unassured opening thanks to a costly double bogey on the par 3 third. That was a setback he failed to recover from, with bogeys at the fifth and ninth meaning the one-shot gap to Uihlein had become six at the turn. His agony was compounded by successive bogeys on the 14th and 15th to leave his hopes of a maiden professional win in tatters.
Elsewhere, Schwartzel and Oosthuizen were showing their class. Schwartzel, in particular, got off to a flying start with an eagle on the opening hole followed by a birdie. However, ultimately, that gap of six proved too much despite three more birdies and just one bogey in his round of 68. As for Oosthuizen, after a solid start with birdies on the first and ninth, he was dogged by an inconsistent back nine featuring two birdies and three bogeys.
With those immediately beneath him faltering, Uihlein just needed to remain consistent, and that’s exactly what he did. Eight successive pars followed his birdie on the seventh, and he finished with a flourish, with further birdies on the 16th and 18th.
That meant what had been a tight affair at the start of the day ended with a five-shot win for Uihlein on 16-under. Schwartzel was the man to finish runner-up, while Oosthuizen finished seven behind the winner, level with Filipino Tabuena Miguel. It was Uihlein's second International Series success of the season after his win in August's elevated event in England.
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Other LIV golfers to finish in the top 10 were Dean Burmester, Anirban Lahiri, Eugenio Chacarra and Kieran Vincent.
The man who began the tournament top of the International Series standings and in pole position for a LIV Golf card, John Catlin, finished T19, and Uihlein has now overtaken him at the summit with just one more of the events to come this year.
That could prove significant as Catlin, who had been the long-term leader, is currently a reserve and with Uihlein already on LIV Golf, if he remains on top of the standings after next week's Saudi International, no one will earn a contract on the circuit via that route.
Afterwards, Uihlein said: “I feel like my game is trending, it's just getting better. Like stuff I've been working on even before, all that stuff feels like it's kind of getting easier under the gun, which was nice. But yeah, it’s 1,000 points to the winner next week so it’s obviously all still up in the air.”
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Mike has over 25 years of experience in journalism, including writing on a range of sports throughout that time, such as golf, football and cricket. Now a freelance staff writer for Golf Monthly, he is dedicated to covering the game's most newsworthy stories.
He has written hundreds of articles on the game, from features offering insights into how members of the public can play some of the world's most revered courses, to breaking news stories affecting everything from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to developmental Tours and the amateur game.
Mike grew up in East Yorkshire and began his career in journalism in 1997. He then moved to London in 2003 as his career flourished, and nowadays resides in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and his wife raise their young family less than a mile from his local course.
Kevin Cook’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Tommy’s Honour, about golf’s founding father and son, remains one of his all-time favourite sports books.
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