Li Haotong has won for the first time since his memorable 2018 Dubai Desert Classic victory over Rory McIlroy, returning from golf’s unforgiving wilderness in equally epic and even more emotional fashion.
The 26-year-old Chinese star holed a monster 40-plus foot putt to pip Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship titleholder Thomas Pieters on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff to claim the BMW International Open at the Golfclub München Eichenried on Sunday.
“I never thought that one day I would have a trophy in my hands again. It’s a dream come true,” said Li who crumbled onto his haunches in emotional disbelief after the wire-to-wire win secured a third DP World Tour title to go with his one-stroke victory over McIlroy at Emirates Golf Club in 2018 and his 2016 Volvo China Open triumph.
Passion. Emotion.
Haotong Li showing how much it means to win 🏆#BMWInternationalOpen pic.twitter.com/3MZPCnoTtn
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) June 26, 2022
“Somehow I thought that I would make that putt [in the play-off]. I don’t know how I made that stroke, how the ball went in the hole, because at the end of the day the greens were very bumpy. You just never know.
“Sometimes things go your way, sometimes not. I’m just so happy to finish on 18 like that.”
Li survived a topsy-turvy final round with three birdies in his opening five holes extending his overnight lead from three to five. But four bogeys and a solitary birdie in his next 10 holes gave Belgian Pieters and Kiwi Ryan Fox, who eventually settled for third, all the back-nine Sunday encouragement they needed. Li did birdie 16 and 17 to take a one-stroke advantage down the last but a par for a 70 to Pieters birdie for a 67 sent the €2 million event to overtime, the pair tied on -22.
And after narrowly avoiding the water with his approach at the first play-off hole, Li managed to get up and down for a birdie sealed with the improbable putt which opened the emotional floodgates. Pieters had a tricky 10-footer to extend the playoff but missed, leaving Li to contemplate the vagaries of a game that he nearly quit 10 months ago after 13 missed cuts in 16 appearnces.
Watch on repeat 😍
The putt that secured Haotong Li’s third DP World Tour victory 🏆#BMWInternationalOpen pic.twitter.com/KXCOwM9lNt
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) June 26, 2022
“No one knows how much I have gone through over the last couple of years. Ten months ago I nearly decided to not play golf. I thought I couldn’t play golf again.
“Ten months later, right now, holding a trophy. If someone told me ten months ago I would win again, I wouldn’t believe that.
“I didn’t realise I could be that emotional. Maybe just because I never thought golf could be that tough. Through a lot of tough times, I realised how good that feeling is to play good again.”
Li has climbed 38 places in the DP World Tour Rankings (formally the Race to Dubai rankings) to sit in 17th place, comfortably inside the top 50 cut-off for the circuit’s season-ending DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates from November 17-20. Pieters is up two spots to fourth while Ras Al Khaimah Classic champion Fox holds steady in seventh place after his sixth DP World Tour top-10 this season.
The DP World Tour now heads to Mount Juliet Estate in Thomastown, Co Kilkenny for the $6 million Horizon Irish Open where Aussie Lucas Herbert, a former winner of the Dubai Desert Classic himself, is the defending champion.
How it finished 📈#BMWInternationalOpen
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) June 26, 2022
