Marcel Siem revealed that a 61 was the plan all along after he carded his lowest DP World Tour round by three shots on the final day of the acciona Open de España presented by Madrid.
In 519 previous events he had never gone lower than 64 but he had a chip on the last for a 59 at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid in his ten under par effort.
While matching the lowest score of the season, he earned himself a tie for fourth at 17 under, six shots behind winner Matthieu Pavon, but at one point he was within one.
The 43-year-old had eagled the fourth with a 53-footer and was in a group three shots back as he added seven birdies and a bogey in his opening 14 holes.
Then came a moment of absolute magic as he holed out from 102 yards at the 15th to cut the gap to one and set up the tantalising prospect of that 59.
And while he could not get over the line as Pavon put on a devastating display of front-running, Siem said that ten under was always his target on day four.
"I looked at the board and thought what's the winning score?" he said. "I thought I might have a chance with 17 under and I gave it go.
"At the start of the day I was not really thinking about winning the golf tournament, I was just trying to give it my best.
"I'm really pleased. I had a chip for a 59 on the last which I never had (before) which was pretty cool.
"Unfortunately I misread the putt on 18 but it's quite cool thinking about the 59 from the 15th hole onwards."
The result moves Siem - who won his first event for over eight years at the Hero Indian Open in February - up to 18th on the Race to Dubai Rankings in Partnership with Rolex, with plenty to play for in the closing events of the season.
The top ten players in the Rankings not already exempt will earn a PGA TOUR card for 2024 and Siem is currently the 11th man, just 61.48 points behind Thorbjørn Olesen in the final spot.
"It was always my dream to play on the PGA TOUR," he said.
"I love the DP World Tour so much and all the friends. I spoke to Romain Langasque about it yesterday, if we have a cool crew of ten guys going over there and sharing houses and stuff it would be amazing.
"But there's a lot of golf to be played before that and especially at my age, I'm thinking about seniors golf later - it's only six-and-a-half years so that's a milestone to have a chance to play over there."
