England’s Bradbury wins Open de France

Open de France – final leaderboard

-16 D Bradbury (Eng); -15 J Winther (Den), Y Paul (Ger), T Olesen (Den), S Bairstow (Eng); -14 F Laporta (Ita), M Jordan (Eng)

Selected others: -10 J Rose (Eng), J Smith (Eng); -9 C Hill (Sco), J Dean (Eng); -8 M Southgate (Eng), T McKibbin (NI)

Full leaderboard

England’s Dan Bradbury fired three consecutive birdies on the back nine to emerge from a pack of title contenders and win the Open de France at Le Golf National.

Bradbury carded a 66 in the final round to finish on 16 under par and take his second title on the DP World Tour.

The 25-year-old made par at the 18th before watching his closest rivals, including compatriot Sam Bairstow, finish one shot behind.

Germany’s Yannik Paul and the Danish pair of Jeff Winther and Thorbjorn Olesen tied with Bairstow for second place.

Bradbury, who began the day two shots behind overnight leader Jesper Svensson from Sweden, said he was due some good fortune as his tee shot on the 15th stopped short of water.

“Obviously got lucky off the tee, but I feel like I’ve had a few bad breaks this week so quite nice to get a good one there,” Bradbury, who won the Joburg Open in November 2022, told Sky Sports.

“And then I just pushed it [the second shot], straight up pushed it, and luckily it stayed on [the green]. Hit a horrendous putt that went in and sometimes you just need that.

“Once I’d done that, I was like ‘it doesn’t feel like my day, but there’s definitely something going for me’.”

He made birdies at 14, 15 and 16 as he came through to win.

Victory for Bradbury, who earns £420,000 and climbs to 25th in the Race to Dubai, also ensured his qualification for the season-ending play-off events in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

“The goal this week was to make the cut so I don’t have to go to Korea and try to keep my card, to be honest with you, so to hear that sounds pretty good,” he said.

“I guess I’ll be looking at flights to Dubai then.”