Danny Willett was the talk of the United Kingdom when he won The Masters four years ago.
After that, he slowly disappeared off the face of the golf world with injuries and a game that couldn’t sustain. He fell all the way to No. 462 in the world.
On a sunny Sunday in Dubai, Willett returned to the winner’s circle in style in a head-to-head duel with current Masters champ Patrick Reed. A clutch birdie at the 71st hole closed the door on Reed and after three years and seven months of despair, Willett won the DP World Tour Championship in the season finale of the 2018 European Tour.
Willett built a five-shot lead over Reed at the turn thanks to an eagle-birdie performance on the two front-nine par fives. But things got interesting in a hurry after a pair of bogeys by Willett and a pair of birdies by Reed over the first three holes of the final nine, making it a nail-biting one-shot lead for Willett.
It stayed that way as the two traded birdies at the 14th and 15th holes then Reed missed a golden opportunity to tie things up when he missed a seven-footer for birdie at the 16th.
The big swing of the day came at the 201-yard par three 17th when Reed pulled his tee shot way left then watched Willett drop a six-iron just six feet from the hole. Reed’s chip left him 20 feet for par and he’d end up with bogey then watched as Willett dropped the birdie to slam the door — a two-shot swing and a three-shot lead with the par five 18th to go. Willett’s drive nearly found the water but it stayed just short, allowing him to make an easy par for 68 and an 18-under winning score. Reed’s birdie left him in a tie for second with Matt Wallace at 16-under.
“It’s been a lot of hard work,” said an emotional Willett. “It’s been tough. I’m just massively proud of myself and everyone that’s been around me. You never quite know when a win is around the corner and with all the things that have happened, I was never quite sure if it was going to happen again.
“To happen here at the end of year, we’ve battled long and hard through this season to come out at the end, regardless of what happened today, a better person and a better athlete. It’s a special place,” he went on. “It’s been a hell of a lot of work and it’s just nice to be back.”
Willett also credited his new swing coach — Sean Foley.
“The back end of 2016 we were in prime position to win the Race to Dubai and picked up a couple of bad injuries, the golf game wasn’t in a good place and I didn’t really want to play golf,” Willett added. I wasn’t in a position to where I was enjoying what I was doing and I was in pain.
“Since working with Sean I knew pretty quick that things were going to be good body-wise. The moves felt horrendous and the ball flight was horrendous, but I wasn’t in pain.”
Francesco Molinari also had a pain-free week on his way to winning the overall Race To Dubai championship. The only player who could have taken it from him was Tommy Fleetwood but both players had a sub-standard week.
Fleetwood closed with 68 and finished in a tie for 160th at 10-under while Molinari’s 71 left him at six-under and tied for 26th.
