Marc Leishman cashes in by winning the Nedbank Challenge in Sun City
Marc Leishman has blitzed the field to win the biggest cheque of his career in South Africa.
Marc Leishman won the biggest cheque of his career overnight when he smashed the field to win the European Tour’s Nedbank Challenge by six shots.
Leishman held a one stroke lead heading into the final day over a field that included plenty of big-name golfers including Branden Grace, Louis Oosthuizen and his nearest rival, Henrik Stenson.
The predicted challenge from the Swede never occurred as Leishman opened up a two-shot lead at the turn and was never headed making four birdies on the back nine to win by a whopping six strokes and collect the $1.25million prize-money.
“I knew it was going to be a really tough day, I knew I had to play well. Henrik’s an awesome player and I knew he’d make me earn it, which he did,” Leishman said. “I’m really pleased that I could play as well as I did and have a little bit of a buffer there at the end.”
After a tumultuous year that almost saw Leishman’s wife Audrey die from an acute respiratory disease, it was a sweet way to finish the year for the boy from Warrnambool who is set to rise up the world rankings thanks to this victory.
“I’m pretty happy to have this year over, to be honest. Audrey got very sick and I lost an uncle who I was very close to. This tops off what was otherwise not a great year. Three weeks ago we moved into a new house, so this will help pay for that,” Leishman added.
Leishman is currently ranked 47th in the world but could jump into the top-25, such was the quality of the field in Sun City, South Africa.