Germany’s top golfer Martin Kaymer missed his first Tour victory since his triumph in 2014 at the US Open despite a great intermediate spurt. The former world number one from Mettmann played a 71 on Sunday’s final round at the tournament in Sun City, South Africa, and finished fifth with a total of 282 strokes. Thereby, a bogey at the 18 cost him a position.
Kaymer has won eleven times on the European Tour so far. The two-time Major winner collected 270,317 euros in prize money for his second top 10 finish after fourth place in Abu Dhabi in January. The 32-year-old was the only German starter in Sun City to be awarded $7.5 million in the competition.
The winner’s cheque for 1.069 million euros went to the South African Branden Grace. The 29-year-old finished his eighth win of the tour with a 66 final lap. With 277 strokes, Grace was ahead of Scott Jamieson (278) and Victor Dubuisson (279).
Kaymer was third with three shots behind front runner Jamieson and had a good chance of reaching the last 18 holes. After Bogeys on the 2 and 6 all hopes seemed to be lost, but with four birdies in a row (7-10) the German climbed back to third place, the gap to the top was suddenly only two strokes. However, there were no further wins after that, before he suffered a blow loss in the end.