GRAEME MCDOWELL has won the 2013 Alstom Open de France to claim his third title of “a funny year” that has brought either a missed cut or a victory in each of his last eight events.
McDowell carded a closing 67 at Le Golf National to finish 9-under, four clear of South Africa’s Richard Sterne (71), who had been only one behind until bogeys at the 16th and 17th.
Australia’s Richard Green (73) finished tied for sixth in his best European Tour performance for over two years while Brett Rumford missed the cut but still qualified for the British Open next week.
McDowell missed the cut in last week’s Irish Open but reaped the rewards of staying on at Carton House over the weekend to work on his game. How he will go at Muirfield is anybody’s guess.
“It’s very special after the last couple of months,” McDowell admitted.
“It’s been a bit of a battle. It’s been a funny year. My game has not felt far away most weeks but I have missed a lot more cuts than normal and missing cuts hurts.
“It certainly motivated me a lot the last few weeks. The US Open was a tough one to take and missing the cut in Ireland last week; it made me more hungry to want to be in positions like I was this afternoon.”
Rumford had two opening rounds he would rather forget to miss the cut on a course that does make it easy to post big numbers.
However he easily made it into the British Open by remaining sixth in the Race to Dubai (the top five not already exempt on the weekend qualified.)
2013 French Open Final Results