Miguel Ángel Jiménez has won his eleventh Champions Tour victory by winning the Mitsubishi Electric Championship for the third time in his career. His triumph could not have been more exciting: it came after a play off playoff against the Australian Steven Alker (-22), whom he beat on the second extra hole.
The golfer from Malaga, always on the lookout for the top positions (in fact, he started the final day in fourth place), knew how to weather the storm in the complicated moments before storming to the lead. Thus, in the first nine holes he contained the effects of a bogey at the 7th and it was not until the 9th hole that he started the birdie machine; five in those last nine holes.
With his birdie on the 18th, Miguel Ángel Jiménez ended the day with 66 strokes for -17, a record that only Steven Alker reached, with another 66. Behind were Vijay Singh (-16), Retief Goosen (-14),… And already in the play-off, played on the 18th, a par 4, the Spaniard made two pars on the first and repeated on the second; the Australian, for his part, did not get rid of the bogey on his second hole and said goodbye to the first victory of the course.
The Spanish golfer already knew what it was like to win this Mitsubishi Electric Championship. So much so that he did it in 2015 and 2020. His eleventh victory on the Champions Tour has come after his first season in white, the 2021, in which he nevertheless did more than enough merits to touch metal: he added ten Top 10, and since July, four second places, a third and a fourth. It’s almost impossible to hoard more merits.
Second place for Rafael Cabrera; Jon Rahm, out of the Top 10
The good news for Spanish golf has not ended in Hawaii, but has expanded to Abu Dhabi. There, the second round of the DP World Tour 2022 calendar was held with a magnificent result for Rafael Cabrera (-9), who finished second just one stroke behind the Belgian Thomas Pieters (-10).
The player from the Canary Islands, sixth at the start of the final round, was quickly in contention for the victory, but his aspirations were interrupted by bogeys at the 15th and 16th holes. Thomas Pieters, with a round with little movement, managed to maintain his first place in a tense final few holes.
At the same time, the PGA Tour was holding The American Express, an event won by Jon Rahm in 2018. In California, the world number one, with a total of -14, was unable to repeat his success, but he did manage a fourteenth place which can’t be bad.
It is true that a great start (66 strokes) set expectations very high, but his discreet even-par rounds (70 and 71) made it impossible to think of anything more than getting close to the top 10 at La Quinta. Victory for the American Hudson Swafford with -23.
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