Danny Willett has won his second Hilton European Tour Golfer of the Month Award of the campaign after an outstanding month of July during which he won his second title of the season at the Omega European Masters and finished tied sixth in The Open Championship.
The 27 year old Englishman was in second place going into the third round at the third Major of the golfing season at St Andrews, before recording his tied sixth finish. He took that form high into the mountains of Crans Montana in Switzerland the following week to add the Omega European Masters to his burgeoning trophy cabinet.
Willett, who won December’s award (part of the 2015 season) for his superb win at the Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa, had to play his best golf to hold off the brilliant challenge of his young countrymen Matthew Fitzpatrick and Hilton Golf Ambassador Tyrrell Hatton during a thrilling final round battle at Crans-sur-Sierre.
In the end Willett emerged the deserving victor, carding a last day 65 to defeat Fitzpatrick by a single stroke, with Hatton finishing third one shot further back.
Willett said: “It’s always great to win Golfer of the Month. It means out of the 200 odd guys on Tour, people think you have played the best. There were some great contenders in July such as Matt Fitzpatrick, Louis Oosthuizen and Bernd Wiesberger, so to come out on top is great.
"There are only 12 months in a year and to win this award twice now is a nice honour. It was a great month for me. It started off quite slow in France, then I didn’t play Scotland, but I put in some hard work and the performances in The Open and Switzerland topped it off. To get to the end of a month and have a win and sixth in a Major, you can’t really complain.” Danny Willett
Fitzpatrick was among the four contenders for the Hilton European Tour Golfer of the Month Award for July, along with South African Louis Oosthuizen, who finished joint runner up in The Open Championship, but Willett’s biggest rival for the prize was Bernd Wiesberger.
The big-hitting Austrian collected his third European Tour title at the Alstom Open de France, producing a quite brilliant final round of six under par 65 at one of the Tour’s most formidable venues, Le Golf National, to win the oldest national Open Championship in Continental Europe.
However, it was the combination of a Major performance at The Open, coupled with an excellent victory in Switzerland, that made Willett the unanimous choice of the selection panel – comprising golf experts from television and print media – which met in the Doubletree by Hilton in Aberdeen during the Saltire Energy Paul Lawrie Match Play. The Panel's 1-2-3 was as follows: 1. Willett; 2. Wiesberger; 3. Oosthuizen.
Martin Dempster, Golf Writer of the Scotsman newspaper, said: “If you look at the month of July as a whole, then the award has to go to Danny Willett, who this year has matured into a truly world-class golfer. With a bit more luck and a couple of bounces here and there, Danny could really have contended at The Open and for him to then go to Crans the very next week and perform the way he did just shows how much he has developed. You could argue that Bernd’s victory in France came at a tougher venue, but when we assessed the whole month it was clear there could only be one winner.”
Fans of ‘My European Tour’ were also involved in the award, with the new format allowing them to vote at www.europeantour.com and try to match the expert panel’s 1-2-3 for July. This month’s winner, along with each of the other monthly winners from March to September, will earn a two-night stay at any Hilton Portfolio hotel worldwide, while all seven winners will be entered into a prize draw to win an incredible three-night stay in Dubai for the season-ending DP World Tour Championship, Dubai.
Willett joins Gary Stal (January), Anirban Lahiri (February), Richie Ramsay (March), Wu Ashun (April) Byeong Hun An (May) and Alex Noren (June) as contenders for The 2015 European Tour Golfer of the Year, which will be decided by a selection panel at the end of the year in Dubai.
