Dan Bradbury came from five shots behind with 10 holes to play to capture his second Joburg Open crown at Houghton on Sunday.
The Englishman rose to the top of a leaderboard that changed faces a few times over the final holes to clinch victory with a great up and down at the last hole.
The 26-year-old, who now has three DP World Tour wins, admitted he was “literally shaking” as he prepared to chip his third shot into the green.
Bradbury, the winner here in 2022, shot a five-under-par 65 to end on 17 under overall, a triumph set-up with five birdies for a back-nine score of 30.
One shot behind were Casey Jarvis — his bid for a third successive victories only narrowly missed — and Brandon Robinson-Thompson, also from England, who both shot 66 on the day.
Poor Hennie du Plessis, the overnight leader by two shots, imploded over the final stretch with bogeys on the 12th and 15th and a double on the 16th to end in fourth spot.
He was 18-under-par with seven holes to go when he hit skid row to fall away. Three tournaments in a row, three misses.
Bradbury, Jarvis and Robinson-Thompson all carded two bogeys on Sunday, but Bradbury got his out of the way on the front nine.
When he walked to the ninth tee box he was still on level par and five shots behind Du Plessis, but a birdie on that hole followed by shot gains on 10 and 11 signalled his attack.
“I think the three [birdies] in a row — nine, 10, 11 — was probably the turning point. I was playing alright, just hadn’t really holed anything by that point. And then, yeah, making those three kind of got me back in the tournament, I would say.
“And then Hennie obviously coming back towards us a little bit helped, but yeah, just probably 12 and 13 was about the point where I was like, ‘right, I’m in this’.”
Bradbury scored two good fighting pars on those holes to stay in the fight.
I’m not known for my short game so I was really, really pleased with that one.
With four holes to go Robinson-Thompson held the lead, but then he dropped a shot to land in a three-way tie on 17 under with Jarvis and Bradbury. Jarvis dropped on the 17th, giving Robinson-Thompson the lead again until Bradbury joined him with a birdie on the 17th.
Robinson-Thompson, who had led after the second round, three-putted for bogey on the 18th, leaving Bradbury, playing in the group just behind, in front for the first time.
Bradbury overhit the green on his approach, but he chipped it to a gimme distance.
“I’m not known for my short game so I was really, really pleased with that one,” said Bradbury. “Been doing a lot of work on it in the last few weeks so it’s nice to see that pay off.
“I was literally shaking standing over that so it was really nice to hit a good shot and it came out exactly how I wanted and left me a nice easy second.”
Bradbury, who won the 2024 French Open, jumped to fourth on the Race to Dubai rankings where the top finishers at the end of the season gain entry to the lucrative but tough PGA Tour.
“I’m obviously in a good position now for Race to Dubai. The ultimate goal is probably to get one of those top-10 PGA Tour cards, so we’ll go for that.
“There’s no reason we can’t do that. That was the goal at the start of the season. And this has just made it a lot more realistic.”
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