Just a year ago Byeong Hun An was winning a mere £1571 in the Scottish Hydro Challenge at Aviemore, but yesterday he decimated the field to win the European Tour’s flagship event and a whopping £600,000.
Tied for the BMW PGA Championship lead overnight with Francesco Molinari, the 23-year-old Korean cruised away imperiously to win the title a final round 65 to complete a record 21-under aggregate of 267.
An is the first PGA Championship debutant and tour rookie to win the Tour’s premier event since Scott Drummond’s shock win in 2004, and notably the record score he smashed was the Scot’s 19-under that year.
He finished six shots clear of Thongchai Jaidee and the agelessly brilliant Miguel Angel Jimenez sharing second place, with Chris Wood on his own in fourth eight shots back. Molinari slumped to a 74 and fifth place.
The youngest-ever winner of the US Amateur in 2009, the Florida-based An chose to follow his friends Brook Koepka and Peter Uihlein to start his career on Europe’s Challenge Tour.
He followed them off the second circuit with promotion to the main tour last season, his form turning directly after that modest cheque at Aviemore when he qualified for the Open at Hoylake and finished inside the top 30 there.
He’d shown promise with three top five placings this season, but there was not really any sort of warning this kind of record-breaking form was going to happen, even to the young man actually doing it.
“I wasn’t expecting this, I didn’t know that a win was this close,” he said. “I’ve been playing well all year, but I never thought I would win this event.”
It will be life-changing for him, but he wasn’t thinking about his ascension into the World’s Top 60.
“I never thought about it to be honest, just winning is good was my mind set for today. If I win, that’s maybe next year secured, but I never thought about the other things.”
He admitted to “some nerves” but played as if they didn’t exist almost from the off.
Molinari started the day having not been out of the lead or a share of it since the opening afternoon, but lost it immediately with a bogey on the first hole. An’s birdie at the short second had him two ahead before he’d even had a chance to work a spring into his step, and the Italian was never a threat after that.
Jaidee took up the chase and got to one behind with three successive birdies from the fifth, but from there it seemed the cool Korean had an answer for everything that happened in front of him.
The biggest response of those effectively ended the championship on the long 12th. Jaidee got his birdie there to get within one, but following behind An hit a glorious second shot to within 18 inches of the cup for a tap-in eagle to stretch his lead to three.
Almost at the same time, Jaidee was blocking his drive on to a path on 13, finding a bunker with his second and failing to get up and down. An’s lead was now four and became five when he picked up another birdie at the 15th.
Jimenez, having another great year in the championship he won in 2008, made a late bid to trouble the lad 28 years his junior with four back nine birdies, but when he dropped one on 16 his challenge, probably hopeless anyway, faded for good.
An duly birdied the seventeenth to stretch his lead to six and was able to play the 18th stress-free, tapping in for par to complete his record triumph.
Just to round up everything nicely, there were two more holes-in-one yesterday bringing the championship total to five and Wood, at the 14th, bagged the £108,000 BMW i8 car on offer for the feat on that hole.
That meant both prize cars were won Andrew Johnson won the M4 at the 10th on Thursday as Wood hit a seven-iron 178 yards for his ace. All the other three aces came at the prize-free second, Trevor Fisher Jnr the culprit yesterday after Scotland’s Craig Lee on Thursday and Jimenez on Saturday.
The Spaniard had nearly aced the 14th on Thursday, promising his tenth career ace on Tour was not far away, and was true to his word. He’s now the sole possessor of the tour record, his 288-bottles-of-beer hole-in-one in Spain last week having tied Colin Montgomerie’s previous record of nine.