{"id":10174,"date":"2012-04-22T16:24:39","date_gmt":"2012-04-22T14:24:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/04\/golf-grace-lifts-china-open-to-join-elite-club\/"},"modified":"2012-04-22T16:24:39","modified_gmt":"2012-04-22T14:24:39","slug":"golf-grace-lifts-china-open-to-join-elite-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/golf-grace-lifts-china-open-to-join-elite-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Golf-Grace lifts China Open to join elite club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">April 22<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; South African Branden Grace lifted the<br \/>\nChina Open on Sunday with a closing three-under-par 69 and<br \/>\nbecame only the second European Tour player to win three titles<br \/>\nin the season after coming through the qualifying school.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The 23-year-old finished 21-under to win the $3 million<br \/>\nevent co-sanctioned by the OneAsia Tour by three shots from<br \/>\ndefending champion Nicolas Colsaerts of Belgium.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I thought my first win was around the corner (this season).<br \/>\nTo have three before May is literally unbelievable, but I&#8217;ve<br \/>\nbeen playing well so I&#8217;ve been feeling like I can win and I&#8217;ve<br \/>\nbeen giving myself opportunities,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Grace not only matched the three titles Johan Edfors Of<br \/>\nSweden won in 2006 after coming through qualifying school but<br \/>\nalso became only the third South African &#8211; after Ernie Els and<br \/>\nRetief Goosen &#8211; to win three times in a season.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Only two players &#8211; Seve Ballesteros (1977) and Sandy Lyle<br \/>\n(1979) &#8211; have won three European Tour titles in a single season<br \/>\nat a younger age.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Grace carded four birdies against a solitary bogey in his<br \/>\nfinal round and maintained at least a two-shot cushion over<br \/>\nColsaerts who also returned 69.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I stayed really calm today. I kept hitting the ball well. I<br \/>\nmissed a couple of shots the first couple of holes but regrouped<br \/>\nwell and made the birdies where it counts on the par fives, and<br \/>\njust stayed with it from there,&#8221; Grace said.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m definitely here to win every week I play now.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Richard finch finished one shot behind after a final round<br \/>\nof 66, while fellow Briton Ian Poulter finished 10-under after<br \/>\nan identical card at Tianjin&#8217;s Binhai Lake Golf Club.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>(Writing by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; editing by<br \/>\nAlastair Himmer)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>April 22 (Reuters) &#8211; South African Branden Grace lifted the China Open on Sunday with a closing three-under-par 69 and became only the second European Tour player to win three titles in the season after coming through the qualifying school. The 23-year-old finished 21-under to win the $3 million event co-sanctioned by the OneAsia Tour [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-10174","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}