REDEMPTION / Marc Leishman wins BMW Championship by five strokes – video highlights

Marc Leishman has won the biggest golf tournament of his career going wire-to-wire to win the BMW Championship by five strokes.

Marc Leishman has quickly put to bed any bad memories his last tournament with an emphatic five stroke victory at the BMW Championship.

A rough finish to the Dell Technologies Championship saw Marc Leishman fade out of contention over the closing nine holes and surprisingly the normally reserved 33-year-old from Warnambool took to twitter to vent his frustration.

A week off with family to recharge was just the tonic as Leishman went wire-to-wire to beat the best in the world.

The victory is Leishman’s biggest of his career, grabbing the $1.5million winners cheque, and moving to the fourth in the Fed Ex Cup standings ahead of next week’s season ending TOUR Championship.

“It’s a long week when you lead everyday. Takes energy out of you. I was pretty tired last night and didn’t sleep very well.” Leishman said.

“That five shot lead sort of — it’s just enough that you shouldn’t get beat but not quite enough that you are out of reach.”

Leishman finished the tournament at 23-under par closing with three birdies in his final four holes to card rounds of 62-64-68-67 and beat Rickie Fowler and Justin Rose by five strokes. A shot further back was fellow Aussie Jason Day who turned in his best performance for many months.

Embed from Getty Images

Justin Rose made a big run on the final day. After he rolled in his sixth birdie of the day at the 13th, the pressure was mounting on Leishman after he made on the same hole soon after. Suddenly the lead was just two strokes and bad memories of a poor finish two weeks earlier would have been creeping to the front of Leishman’s mind.

But unlike last week, Leishman looked in complete control with his short stick staying white hot through the closing stretch.

Two birdies (including two fist pumps) at holes 15 and 16 saw Leishman regain control of the golf tournament and took a four shot lead to the 18th hole.

It was perhaps fitting that Leishman out-shone Day over the weekend.

Playing in the shadow of his better known countrymen Jason Day and Adam Scott, few can now argue that Leishman has been the best Aussie golfer over the past two years with a string of great finishes at the majors including a heartbreaking loss in a playoff at The Open at St Andrews in 2015.

Leishman now heads to the season-ending, and highly lucrative TOUR Championship at fourth on the Fed Ex Cup rankings. A victory there would not only secure another trophy but the $10million prize for winning the Fed Ex Cup Playoffs.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *