European Ryder Cup vice-captain outshines his own team to win BMW PGA at wet Wentworth

By

[PHOTO: Henry Nicholls]

From Rory McIlroy to Jon Rahm, 11 members of the European Ryder Cup team were at the DP World Tour’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. But they were all upstaged by Alex Noren, who will be one of their five vice-captains at Bethpage next week.

Overnight at Wentworth, Noren, from Sweden, cleaned up a short birdie putt on the first playoff hole at the DP World Tour’s flagship event to defeat France’s Adrien Saddier. The pair were tied at 19-under after 72 holes, having each shot a 68 to separate themselves by three shots from Patrick Reed and Aaron Rai.

RELATED: Europe’s new Ryder Cup trick… using VR headsets to mimic expected crowd noise

In overtime, Noren and Saddier, whose breakthrough DP World Tour win came at the Italian Open earlier this year, both went for the par-5 18th in two but fell short of the greenside water. Saddier appeared to have a nasty lie for his pitch shot while Noren was able to nestle his third to tap-in range for victory against an elite field that also included Hideki Matsuyama, Joaquin Niemann, Adam Scott and Ryan Fox among other stars.

“I love it. This tournament is unbelievable,” said Noren, who also won at Wentworth in 2017. “I told all the guys in the States to come over here. I think it’s one of the best tournaments in the whole world. It just gets better every year. I’m so grateful we have these kind of tournaments.”

In a delicious Ryder Cup twist, Noren, 43, made a charge during the northern summer on both sides of the Atlantic in an unsuccessful bid to be included on the European team. Noren was T-7 at the 3M Open and a T-3 at the Wyndham Championship on the PGA Tour, before winning the British Masters at the Belfry last month, just before the deadline for the six automatic qualification spots.

After missing the cut at the European Masters the week before Luke Donald named his six captain’s picks, Noren was instead chosen as a vice-captain for Bethpage, joining brothers Francesco and Edoardo Molinari, Thomas Bjorn and Jose Maria Olazabal.

But his European homecoming was still a fruitful trip as Noren collected his 11th and 12th career wins on the DP World Tour in the span of three weeks.

“I like coming back to Europe and I like splitting time [between the US],” Noren said. “It feels great to see all my friends here. My caddie and coaches have gone a great job and just trusted the process and not veered away from it, which I usually do otherwise. Yeah, it pays off.”

Noren was integral while playing on the European team during the home side’s 2018 Ryder Cup win in Paris when he collected two points from three matches at Le Golf National. One of those points came via a 40-foot putt on the 18th green to down Bryson DeChambeau in their singles match. Europe claimed a decisive 17½ to 10½ victory over the US that week.

Noren was jokingly asked after his win at Wentworth if he’d take the clubs to Bethpage in case he was needed, given his recent form.

“[No] I took my clubs this time but [I’ll now] take [them] home to Florida,” he said. “I think the other guys have played better than me throughout the year. I’ve had great results the past month but… a little bit too late. I think the guys on the team [are] going to be fantastic.”