Martin Kaymer completed consecutive wins on The European Tour as he added The Barclays Scottish Open title to last week’s Open de France ALSTOM success.
The 24 year old German – the youngest ever winner of this event - compiled a near immaculate final round of 69 at Loch Lomond to finish on 15 under par 269, two ahead of France’s Raphaël Jacquelin and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano of Spain.
“This week was very special, because I think if you win in the home of golf in Scotland, it's always something special, and I really enjoyed the last two days,” said Kaymer.
“It was amazing, the spectators, they were supporting us, it was unbelievable.”
When asked about his chances of securing an unprecedented hat-trick of titles at The Open Championship next week, Kaymer admitted he would be facing a stiff task at Turnberry.
“Everybody asks me about the third win in a row, but we are playing a Major next week, and the field is going to be the best we have all year long.
“But last week and this week was a good field already, but next week is going to be the best field that we have this year probably. So I'm really looking forward to next week. I think I've been there before, but my manager, he played there a couple of weeks ago and he said it's going to be really, really difficult, which is always good - if you play Majors, they should be difficult.”
Remarkably the 2007 Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year is not the first player to win two weeks running on The 2009 European Tour International Schedule – South Africa’s Richard Sterne landed the Alfred Dunhill Championship and South African Open Championship back-to-back in December.
Kaymer started the day one behind Spain’s Gonzalo Fernandez-Castaño and fell further behind with a bogey at the second.
But three birdies before the turn put him ahead going down the inward nine and a magnificent approach to the par four 15th brought him a fifth birdie of the day and rendered Jacquelin’s late charge irrelevant.
The 35 year old from Lyon birdied four of his closing six holes for a 66 and share of second with Fernandez-Castaño.
“It's a nice track,” said Jacquelin. “I love to play here. The weather has been fantastic, I would say the first three rounds, and even today we were lucky to play the decent weather - another great week.”
Australian Adam Scott and Dane Søren Kjeldsen were one further back on 12 under, ahead of America’s Nick Watney and Retief Goosen of South Africa.
The win is Kaymer’s fourth on The European Tour and puts him joint second with Alex Cejka in the list of most prolific German winners, behind only Bernhard Langer. It also elevates him to second behind Paul Casey in The Race to Dubai.
