{"id":15927,"date":"2019-01-20T11:55:10","date_gmt":"2019-01-20T07:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/?p=15927"},"modified":"2019-01-20T11:55:10","modified_gmt":"2019-01-20T07:55:10","slug":"lowry-surges-to-summit-of-the-race-to-dubai-with-abu-dhabi-hsbc-championship-triumph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/lowry-surges-to-summit-of-the-race-to-dubai-with-abu-dhabi-hsbc-championship-triumph\/","title":{"rendered":"Lowry Surges To Summit Of The Race To Dubai With Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship Triumph"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Shane Lowry surged to the summit of the European Tour\u2019s Race to Dubai after holding off a relentless Richard Sterne to complete a sensational wire-to-wire victory at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship presented by EGA.<\/p>\n<p>The 31 year old\u00a0started the final day with a three-shot lead over South African Sterne but surrendered the advantage after carding four bogeys in his opening 10 holes while a red hot Sterne made the turn in 31 to take the lead from the 2015 WGC Bridgestone Invitational\u00a0champion.<\/p>\n<p>With four shots to make up\u00a0and only seven holes to play, Lowry carded back-to-back birdies on 12 and 13 before Sterne\u00a0dropped shots on 14 and 16, leaving the pair level on 17 under par walking up the 18th.<\/p>\n<p>The Irishman expertly made the green in two before holing\u00a0his birdie putt to seal a maiden Rolex Series title and enter the Race to Dubai Rankings in first place on 1,165 points.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s great to have a Rolex Series beside my name now, I get the gold bib and get the star there,\u201d said Lowry, who became the first player in European Tour history to make 11 birdie twos in a tournament after demolishing the National course\u2019s par 3s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know, I think, we\u2019re very lucky to be able to play such big events on the European Tour and Rolex have done a great job. All the players, I can vouch for them and say we\u2019re very grateful to be playing for the types of money we are in the events we\u2019re playing in. So yeah, I\u2019m just over the moon to have won.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sterne, who was searching for a fifth European Tour victory, had to settle for runner-up after narrowly missing his own birdie chance at the last. The 37 year old receives 780 points which leapfrogs him from 101<sup>st<\/sup> to second on the Rankings.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, 2018 Oman Open winner Joost Luiten finished third, three behind Lowry after a highly impressive final round of seven under par 65 which leaves the Dutchman in sixth on the Race to Dubai Rankings on 438 points.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s great to be back at the right end of a tournament,\u201d said Luiten. \u201cI had a tough time at the end of last year with an injury, so it\u2019s good to be back playing again and great to start off the season with a top-three finish. I\u2019m just happy with the way I\u2019m playing. I feel happy on the golf course and that\u2019s a good thing, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>2018 South African Open winner Louis Oosthuizen carded a final round 66 to secure fourth place on 14 under par to move from fourth to third in the Rankings on 760.6 points.<\/p>\n<p>S\u00f8ren Kjeldsen finished one further back to complete the top five and start his 2018\/19 Race to Dubai campaign ranked 11<sup>th<\/sup> while 2014 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship winner Pablo Larraz\u00e1bal jumped from 44<sup>th<\/sup> to 14<sup>th<\/sup> after a share of sixth place earned him 265.7 points.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15928\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/D1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"160\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shane Lowry surged to the summit of the European Tour\u2019s Race to Dubai after holding off a relentless Richard Sterne to complete a sensational wire-to-wire victory at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship presented by EGA. The 31 year old\u00a0started the final day with a three-shot lead over South African Sterne but surrendered the advantage after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15927"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15930,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15927\/revisions\/15930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.dubaicityguide.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}