So near and yet so far for Fox at Dutch Open
CROMVOIRT: New Zealand's Ryan Fox has been beaten on the fourth hole of a playoff as victory in the Dutch Open slipped from his grasp.
Instead, Victor Perez hailed ``a bit of magic'' after defying the odds to clinch victory, but Fox will look back on what might have been before the pair tied on 13under par.
Fox (35) had looked certain to win in regulation when he chipped in for a birdie on the 11th, holed from 24.5m for an eagle on the 12th and then holed from 13.7m for birdie on the 14th to establish a threeshot lead.
However, he drove into a water hazard on the 18th, missed the green with his approach and duffed his fourth shot into a greenside bunker to run up a doublebogey seven.
Playing two groups behind, Frenchman Perez holed from 10.6m for birdie on the 17th to move into a share of the lead on 13under and hit a superb approach into the last. However, he missed from just over 2m for a winning birdie.
The players returned to the par5 18th and Perez had to hole from nearly 5m to match Fox's birdie on the first extra hole, with neither able to make birdie at the second attempt.
Fox again had one hand on the trophy on the third extra hole when he found the green in two and set up a tapin birdie, only for Perez to hole from 9m to stay alive.
And Perez holed another longrange putt for birdie when the action switched to the parthree 17th, before a stunned Fox missed his.
It is Fox's second consecutive second placing on the DP World Tour, following the Soudal Open in Belgium two weeks ago.
``There's a fair amount of fortune, I've got to be honest with myself, holing all those long putts in the playoff,'' Perez told Sky Sports.
``It's hard to put into words because it's a long day and Ryan was flying for a while. We didn't even really think we had a chance.
``Coming down 16 I knew I probably had to birdie the last three and James [his caddie] told me don't look up at the leaderboard. I holed the putt on 17 and the playoff was just a bit of magic.
``I just tried to focus on me all day — that's all I can do.’’
Perez, Fox and Adrian Meronk, who finished a shot outside the playoff, secured the three places
on offer at St Andrews for the 150th Open Championship via the open qualifying series. — PA