23rd June 2013 | Alps Tour Golf
Brown's masterstroke in France
Stephen Brown with huge trophy of Open de la Mirabelle d’Or. (c) Agathe Séron
Steven Brown surprised everyone when he fired 65 as last group still had one hour to play. The Englishman was then -7 total and had to wait for an happy ending victory story. France’s Pierrick Peracino and Austria’s Uli Weinhandl did not succeed in catching him and tied for second place.
Brown was six shots adrift this morning and the players to watch, as far as golf was concerned, were not in his group. But it was this kind of last round where the leader lost, hole after hole, the advantage he got.
Brown had a great amateur career ended with a famous win over the USA Team during Walker Cup 2011. He turned pro end of 2011 and played his first season on the Alps Tour as rookie in 2012. His best result was a podium in Guadeloupe but he was expected to do better.
Brown decided not to travel to French Caraibean this year and maybe this week off was helpful to challenge Mother Nature in Metz. Most of the players are tired after 7 weeks in a row and long first round due to thunderstorms really hurt some of them.
Steven Brown waited at the club house watching Ernie Els winning in Munich while his time might come as well to lift a trophy.
“It was amazing and tough. I have been waiting for more than an hour to know if I won. It is great , I am very happy and I have good chance now to be in top 5 at the end of the year.”
“I holed a really good putt on the 9th to save par, about 4 meters and thereafter everything came easily.”
Matt Wallace, his playing partner, testified that it seemed to be very easy when watching Brown to play well.
“I holed 13th, 14th, 16th and 17th so I suddenly appears on the leaderboard and when I gave my score to the scorer at the 18th he was surprised I was leading.”
France’s Peracino was in the last group but his day was not a bed of roses.
“I am obviously disappointed. But honestly my driving was so poor I got lucky to score one over. It could have been worse. I made some really good recovery. But I struggled so much with fix my driving.”
“I know that I can be in the last group now. You know the feeling is very special, you don’t want the round to end. You want to play again and again. Even when I holed for birdie on the 17th, I still though I could do it.”
With this win, Steven Brown jumped the sixth place at Alps Tour Ranking.
From Metz
Agathe Séron
