SUTTON COLDFIELD, England — England’s trio of Andy Sullivan, Oliver Wilson and James Morrison were part of a six-way tie in the final round of the British Masters, while tournament favorite Justin Rose remained in contention despite being awarded a 2-over 74 on Saturday.
Dutchman Joost Lutin, Italian Guido Migliuzzi and Denmark’s Niclas Norgaard also tied at 7-under 209 as high winds wreaked havoc on the Belfry Tower.
Rose took an early lead after a 65 in the opening round but had a 73 in the second, a worse shot on Saturday, to sit three times back in an event he won in 2002 and hosted in 2018.
Lutin and Migliuzzi each shot 68, while the other four took 70 in the third round.
Sullivan said he was “extremely upset” to contest a fifth European Tour title after making birdies on the 17th and 18th.
“I wanted to do something like that all day to try to get ahead, luckily it finally came through,” Sullivan said after crashing from a 40-foot drop at the finish. “I was just grateful to hit it in the hole because it might have already fallen on the other hills. I haven’t had anything all day, very steady and very solid, and then yeah, the last two holes were sweet to finish like that.”
Wilson rose to the lead with four birdies in his first seven holes, but missed from three feet to last in the ninth and then dropped putts on the tenth and eleventh before getting seven pars out in a row.
Frenchman Antoine Rosner was holeshotting the eighth and closing in on the ninth to join Wilson in the lead at 9-under, only to throw two wedge-putts into the water on the 10th and make a quadruple bogey of 8.
Rose was put on first for a triple bogey of his own in the 12th when it looked like he needed multiple attempts to break through his ball from a muddy lie on the edge of a water hazard, but he was actually taking two runs.
“My ball was plugged into the danger zone but luckily there was a base official near me who explained that you could swing,” Rose said. “My thinking was that if I’m really fumbling it’s really hard to take all the ground my ball is sitting on and move it forward the three or four yards I need to. I felt like I could do that, so the third swing I saw was my attempt at the ball.”
Matthew Baldwin made a hole-in-one in the 14th par, which earned a £50,000 ($63,500) donation from the tournament sponsor to Cancer Research UK because it’s the same hole where tournament host Nick Faldo hit the ace. During the 1993 Ryder Cup.