Peerless SA golfer Higgo powers to another win in Canary Islands

SA’S Garrick Higgo continued to write his own chapter in the European Tour history books on Sunday as he powered to a second win in three weeks at the 2021 Canary Islands Championship.

Just 14 days after he lifted the trophy at the Gran Canaria Lopesan Open with a European Tour record low score of 255, a closing 64 with a hole-in-one moved him to 27 under and handed him a six-shot victory at Golf Costa Adeje.

Australian Maverick Antcliff was the nearest challenger, one shot clear of Finn Tapio Pulkkanen, with home favourite Adri Arnaus, the previous week’s winner Dean Burmester, Dane Nicolai Hojgaard, England’s Andrew Johnston and Irishman Niall Kearney at 19 under.

But all eyes were on Higgo as he took his score across the 12 rounds of the Canary Islands Swing to 68 under and sent records tumbling.

A third European Tour win in just his 26th event makes him the fastest South African to get three wins not including Majors and World Golf Championships. He matches the record of Tiger Woods for the fewest number of events needed to claim three European/pga Tour wins since 1990.

The 21-year-old also becomes the fourth youngest player to get three European Tour wins. He beats countryman Burmester’s mark for the largest winning margin on the 2021 Race to Dubai set last week.

With Burmester’s win being sandwiched by Higgo’s two, this is the first time there have been three consecutive SA winners on the European Tour since 2012, and the first time that feat has been achieved outside SA.

It has been a remarkable run for SA golf of late, with Brandon Stone, J C Ritchie and Wilco Nienaber also making it three wins in a row for the rainbow nation on the European Challenge Tour.

Higgo moves up to fifth on the Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex and also moves to the brink of entering the top in the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time.

“Jeez, it’s amazing,” he said. “I’m just really happy and thankful. “It’s not easy to lead; the other day was my first time and in this game anything can happen.”

Meanwhile, in George, Wilco Nienaber battled to find an accurate drive in the play-off on Sunday in the Sunshine Tour’s and Challenge Tour’s Dimension Data Pro-am on the Montagu course at Fancourt.

But was not enough to stop him pulling off his maiden professional victory.