The Astara Golf Championship, which ended this Sunday at the Bogotá Country Club, had a tight definition, with many candidates for the title, but with a champion who defined the situation in a big way, with an eagle on the 18th hole.
Australian Rhein Gibson is the new PGA Tour tournament championwhich was played on the two courts of the Country Club of Bogotá, but which had its final day in the Fundadores field, the traditional venue for this contest.
Gibson, 37 years old and a professional since 2009, had started the last round in second place in the table, one stroke behind the partial leader, the Norwegian of Mexican origin Kris Ventura. In the end, the extraordinary closing of the 18th allowed him to get his second victory on the circuit, his first since 2019. He finished with 267 impacts, 16 under par, and beat his closest rival, the American Kevin Dougherty, by four.
The voice of the tournament champion
“It really is amazing. Last year was difficult, I’m not going to lie to you. I knew that I had been playing well, I did it in Panama and I continued to do so this week. I love coming to this place, I really like it a lot. I made a great game plan and made key putts. Knowing that I am the champion is something very crazy”, said Gibson, who participated for the sixth time in the contest and did not appear, until today, in the world ranking of golfers.
“I come with a lot of confidence in my game. I trusted my plan and hit the ball amazing. At 18 I wanted to get to 18 so I would have to two putt. Everything went perfectly for me and it feels good to win after three years”, added the new champion.
Ventura, who had started the round as the leader, could not find his best game yesterday and finished the last round with 71 shots, to fall to the seventh square, six shots behind the winner. That prevented him from getting his third victory as a player on the PGA Tour promotion circuit.
The tournament had a bittersweet taste for Colombia: none of the local entrants made it to the weekend. Camilo Villegas, the great attraction of the tournament, was painful: he was left out of the cut on the last hole on Friday, with a bogey on the 9th hole, the last of his round.
Also left out of the cut, due to a blow, was the fan Daniel Faccini, who had qualified for the tournament in the internal selective of the Country Club. And Daniel Zuluaga, who obtained the place in another qualifying tournament in Cali, was far from the qualifying zone for the last two rounds, in the last places.
The Chilean Cristóbal del Solar was the best Latin American representative: finished in box 13, with 274 shots, nine under par. He even came close, on the 15th hole of his round, two shots off the lead. The Argentine Nelson Ledesma also finished in the top 20, in 19th place, with 276 hits (-7).
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