Andrea Pavan's impressive performance at the Genesis Championship. With a superb final round of 66 (-5), for a total of 277 (69, 68, 74, 66, -7) strokes, he rose from 29th to fourth place. This result also moved him from 82nd to 65th in the Race to Dubai (order of merit), entering the field (top 70 finishers admitted) for the first of two DP World Tour Playoffs (Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, Rolex Series, November 6-9, United Arab Emirates) that will close the season. Joining the 36-year-old Roman will be Francesco Laporta, 35, from Castellana Grotte (Bari), who, in 14th place with a 279 (73, 69, 70, 67, -5), moved from 59th to 54th in the rankings.
Pavan, results
On the par 71 course at the Woo Jeong Hills Country Club in Cheonan, South Korea, Korean Junghwan Lee won at home with a 273 (71 65 73 64, -11) after a tournament with ups and downs in which he started in 59th place, became the leader in the second round, slipped to 12th in the third and surpassed everyone with a sprint to 64 (-7), the best score of the day, obtained with eight birdies, five in a row, after a bogey at the start. He left Spaniard Nacho Elvira and Englishman Laurie Canter, a former LIV Golf player, second with 276 (-8), three strokes behind, while Pavan was joined by Japanese Yuto Katsuragawa and Englishman Andy Sullivan. Another win for Japan's Hideki Matsuyama (bronze medalist at the Paris Games and Masters Champion in 2021), Belgium's Thomas Detry, and Spain's Angel Ayora, who is seventh among the seven competitors with a 278 (-6). In 30th place with a 281 (-3) is the third Italian player in the field, Guido Migliozzi (70 68 73 70), a 28-year-old from Vicenza, who finished 78th in the Race to Dubai, and Australian Adam Scott, who also scored in the Masters (2013).
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Junghwan Lee, 34, from Gwangju, has been a member of the Asian Tour since 2022 (and will now also be a member of the DP World Tour), where his best performance so far has been a top ten finish. He has won twice on the KPGA Korean Tour (the KPGA Caido Golden V1 Open in 2017 and the Tour Championship in 2018). For the title, he received a check for $680,000 out of a $4,000,000 prize pool.
Pavan, who shot the second round, had seven birdies and two bogeys, Laporta had six birdies and two bogeys for a 67 (-4), and Migliozzi completed a 70 (-1) with four birdies and three bogeys. Now in Abu Dhabi, Laporta and Pavan's goal will be to finish among the top 50 in the rankings for the final event of the season, the DP World Tour Championship (Jumeirah Golf Estates, Earth Course, Dubai, November 13-16, Rolex Series).
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At the end of the Genesis Championship, berths for the 2026 circuit were awarded to the top 115 in the Race to Dubai. Gregorio De Leo, 130th, failed to get it and will benefit from a category 10 reserved for those placed 116th to 130th, unless he improves his score at the Qualifying School.
