Britain’s David Dixon secured his maiden European Tour title after producing a faultless closing five-under 66 to win the St Omer Open by one shot on Sunday.
Englishman Dixon, who started his week with a 77, was four strokes behind Sweden’s Christian Nilsson overnight but surged past the long time front-runner with a five-under-par 279 total. Nilsson closed with a 71 to finish a stroke behind.
The 31-year-old Dixon, the 2001 silver medallist at the British Open as top amateur, became the 11th first time winner on the European Tour the hard way.
His opening round was the highest by a winner this season, but a run of four birdies from the seventh enabled Dixon, who had missed the cut in seven of his last eight events to languish 171st on the European money-list, to wipe out all but one shot of Nilsson’s overnight advantage.
When the Swede dropped shots at the 11th and 12th, Dixon’s final birdie, at the 14th, proved decisive and he went on to secure the $157,000 first prize, an exemption for the 2009 European Tour season and a place in the November Champions event, for which world number one Tiger Woods qualifies.
“It maybe only a small tournament to win but it has massive consequences,” Dixon told reporters.
“I cleared all those thoughts out of my mind, though, stayed pretty calm and holed some good putts - and then hung on.”
The victory came seven years after Dixon burst onto the golfing scene by taking the amateur honours at Royal Lytham and St Annes.
“People got a bit carried away with what I did in 2001 so it’s been a bit of a slow process in getting my first win,” Dixon added. “But I changed my management company for this season and I’d felt something good might happen.”
Briton Steven O’Hara finished third on three-under, a stroke behind Nilsson.
St Omer Open Scores
279 David Dixon 77 67 69 66
280 Christian Nilsson (Swe) 75 64 70 71
281 Steven O'Hara 74 69 70 68
282 Richard Bland 78 69 67 68, Francois Delamontagne (Fra) 72 72 67 71, Seve Benson 71 72 72 67
283 Roope Kakko (Fin) 68 74 72 69, David Drysdale 78 66 72 67, Robert Coles 74 71 66 72
284 John E Morgan 69 72 73 70, Mikko Korhonen (Fin) 69 73 73 69
285 Marco Ruiz (Par) 74 68 75 68, Jan Are Larsen (Nor) 70 73 72 70
286 Nicolas Vanhootegem (Bel) 74 69 69 74, Alessandro Tadini (Ita) 73 72 72 69
287 Gareth Paddison (Nzl) 71 75 69 72, Robert Rock 75 70 71 71, Cesar Monasterio (Arg) 71 73 70 73, Michael Hoey 73 72 72 70
288 Eric Ramsay 70 73 74 71, Matthew Cort 75 70 76 67
289 Chris Gane 74 71 73 71, Iain Pyman 74 72 71 72, Gustavo Rojas (Arg) 76 71 72 70, David Griffiths 72 73 74 70, Benjamin Miarka (Ger) 75 72 70 72, Benoit Teilleria (Fra) 73 73 72 71
290 Wil Besseling (Ned) 78 68 70 74, Juan Abbate (Arg) 76 71 70 73, Richard Treis (Ger) 73 71 70 76, Sebastien Delagrange (Fra) 75 72 68 75, Richard McEvoy 76 70 73 71, Terry Pilkadaris (Aus) 73 70 75 72, Marco Soffietti (Ita) 72 70 75 73
291 Liam Bond 73 69 70 79, Scott Barr (Aus) 73 71 72 75, Mark f Haastrup (Den) 74 69 75 73, Andrew Coltart 73 73 75 70, Ben Mason 71 74 72 74, Edward Rush 74 72 73 72
292 Steve Alker (Nzl) 74 72 72 74, Marcus Higley 69 75 71 77, Steven Jeppesen (Swe) 70 76 71 75, Christophe Brazillier (Fra) 72 71 80 69, Lawrence Dodd 71 74 74 73
293 Alvaro Salto (Spa) 71 74 74 74, Andreas Hogberg (Swe) 75 72 74 72, Gareth Maybin 70 72 77 74, David Bransdon (Aus) 72 73 75 73, Klas Eriksson (Swe) 73 72 76 72, Anthony Snobeck (Fra) 75 69 75 74
294 Colm Moriarty 75 72 74 73, Anders Schmidt Hansen (Den) 73 74 73 74, Tim Dykes 77 69 78 70, Ian Garbutt 74 71 72 77
295 Jeppe Huldahl (Den) 76 68 73 78, Sion Bebb 73 70 73 , Julien Quesne (Fra) 71 75 71 78, Rikard Karlberg (Swe) 72 75 76 72, Olivier David (Fra) 76 69 75 75, Julien Xanthopoulos (Fra) 75 70 75 75, Jordi Garcia (Spa) 76 70 78 71, Fredrik Widmark (Swe) 74 71 76 74, Thomas Aiken (Rsa) 77 70 73 75
297 Matthew King (Aus) 73 74 75 75, Kyron Sullivan 72 73 73 79, Rodolfo Gonzalez (Arg) 75 71 74 77, Thomas Feyrsinger (Aut) 71 74 75 77, Toni Karjalainen (Fin) 73 74 73 77
298 Alexandre Rocha (Bra) 75 67 78 78, Alessio Bruschi (Ita) 76 71 75 76, David Higgins 74 73 76 75, James Morrison 75 72 74 77
299 Joakim Backstrom (Swe) 75 71 74 79
301 Francois Calmels (Fra) 81 66 76 78
