Miguel Ángel Jiménez has once again chiseled a notch in his impressive sporting resume by winning the Mitsubishi Electric Championship, thus opening the Spanish list of winners this season after beating Ernie Els and Fred Couples, two truly legendary players, in an electrifying playoff.
The golfer from Malaga, who already won first place in this tournament in the 2015 edition, has obtained in Hawaii his ninth victory in the North American Champions Tour, where once again, in an impeccable manner, he has once again demonstrated the eternal quality of his game.
Miguel Ángel Jiménez, the only Spanish representative in the Mitsubishi Electric Championship, first tournament of the year 2020 of the Champions Tour, started the last day from third position, only two strokes behind the provisional leader, the American Woody Austin.
A regular protagonist of outstanding reactions in the last rounds, the player from Malaga previously delivered a magnificent card of 64 strokes on the first day that led him to the lead before finishing in the clubhouse with 71 strokes on the second day, thus positioning himself as a serious contender for the title.
The Andalusian player started the last round of this tournament held in Hawaii two strokes off the lead, but a card of 67, with six birdies and a bogey, and the leader Woody Austin’s 73, put him at the top of the leaderboard.
However, two other players, true legends of the sport, Fred Couples and Ernie Els, acted as a counterweight to the Spanish player, and with cards of 67 and 65 strokes, respectively, managed to catch Miguel Angel Jimenez in first place with a total of 202 strokes.
This led to an exciting play off playoff, where Miguel Angel Jimenez pulled out all his courage and all the good golf he has inside. In the first round, Fred Couples was the first to be eliminated when he made a bogey, while his two opponents made par.
And in the decisive play-off between Ernie Els and Miguel Ángel Jiménez on the next hole, the player from Churriana made a great birdie that the South African player could not match.
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An impressive track record
Miguel Ángel Jiménez already has nine victories on the Champions Tour. He won in his first appearance -it was in the Greater Gwinnett Championship, played in April 2014-, was eighth in the second and in January 2015 he won the Mitsubishi Electric Championship.
Already in 2016 he won the Mississippi Gulf Resort Classic, a success repeated in 2017, when he beat the American Gene Sauers in a thrilling play-off playoff.
Later, in May 2018 he won the Regions Tradition, the first major achieved by a Spaniard in the senior professional field. At the beginning of July he came within a step of also winning the US Senior Open Championship, a success that was only prevented by the success of the American David Toms.
A few days later, at the end of July, Miguel Ángel Jiménez consolidated his trajectory with a resounding victory in The Senior Open, another of the integrated Majors in both the European Senior Tour and the Champions Tour.
It is a curious circumstance that Miguel Ángel Jiménez also opened the Spanish victory record in 2019 by winning the Chubb Classic with great brilliance, before winning, also in 2019, the Dominion Energy Charity Classic.
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