Fourth consecutive title for Ballesteros

Press, 8 July 1986, Page 24

Fourth consecutive title for Ballesteros

NZPA-Reuter Versailles, France

Severiano Ballesteros, of Spain, landed his fourth consecutive European title yesterday and moved in sight of becoming the first golfer to win £1 million ($2.84 million) on the tour. Ballesteros took the French Open with a final round of 69 for a 19-under-par total of 269; two strokes ahead of the runner-up, Vicente Fernandez, of Argentina, who shot 68.

The Spaniard, whose success came after wins in the British Masters, Irish Open, and Monte Carlo Open, has now won $426,000 this season and is only £40,000 ($113,600) short of his goal of £1 million prize-money on the European tour.

“No-one knows how much pressure I have been under being in contention every week. I am very tired. I will rest now

in Spain for a week before going to Scotland for the Open championship at Turnberry,” said Ballesteros.

“I feel very confident but you need more than confidence to win the Open. There are so many good players to beat,” he said after the win, his forty-eighth in the past 10 years.

“I am very pleased with the way I won this week. I led from the start to the finish, just as I did last year. That must be a record,” the Spaniard said. Fernandez and the West German, Bernhard Langer, came within a stroke of Ballesteros at one stage but the Spaniard birdied the eighth and ninth to turn three clear of the field once more.

He had one bad moment at the seventeenth when he missed the fairway with his tee

shot, but Fernandez, in the middle of the fairway, could not hit the green to put him under pressure and carded a par five. Ballesteros played a typically brave recovery and chipped and putted for his fourth birdie of the round to make victory certain. Fernandez’s 271 left him a stroke clear of Langer, who also had a 68, while Britain’s Nick Faldo, winner of the French title at La Boulie in 1983, was round in 70 to finish fourth on 274.

Scores.— 269.—Ballesteros (Spain) 65, 66, 69, 69. 271. Fernandez (Argentina) 69, 65, 69, 68. 272. Langer (West Germany) 71, 65, 68, 68. 274.—Fa1d0 (Britain) 66, 70, 68, 70.

275. Armando Saavedra (Argentina) 71, 68, 66, 70; Rick Hartmann (United Stated) 71, 69, 67, 68. 276. Robert Lee (Britain) 68, 70, 66, 72; Ray Stewart (Canada) 68, 66, 77, 65.