Majesticks produce late birdie blitz to win Tier III in Dallas

Sam Horsfield led the charge with an incredible round, making five birdies in a row towards the end of his day after having started with an early triple bogey seven on his second hole. In the end, he finished on 3-under 69 as the team tallied 5-under par.

Co-Captain Ian Poulter made three successive birdies from his 14th hole of the day to improve to 1-under, a score matched by Lee Westwood. Henrik Stenson, who was 4-over through his first six holes, knuckled down to finish on even-par, a round that included a brace of important closing birdies as Majesticks pulled ahead of Torque by one shot in their tier.

Majesticks thus finished ninth in the Team Championship, improving two places after entering the week at 11th place following the regular season.

Horsfield said he was playing well the whole day, and the only thing he changed before that five-birdie blitz was the number on his balls.

“Obviously, the start wasn’t great. The 12th (his second) was probably the hardest hole on the course all week with the wind we had, it was into and I hit a bit of a crappy drive out to the right, and it was sort of half in the hazard, half not in the hazard. I decided that I wanted to go for it, and could not pull it off,” said Horsfield.

“It wasn’t a great start, but I knew I’d been swinging it well, hitting it well, so I just sort of stayed patient, and then got on a nice little run there towards the end.

“It was really funny, because I switched my balls before the hole. I told my caddie after I made a bogey on the fourth that we’re two over now using this No.7 golf ball, so let’s make a change. I switched to a No.6 and rattled off five birdies in a row.

“So superstition or not. it was really nice to hit some iron shots in there close and be able to have a few tap-ins. And then, made a couple of nice 10-15 footers to keep the momentum going with the birdies.”

Horsfield said it was frustrating to sit idle on Saturday after losing Friday’s quarter-finals to Fireballs and the team was fired up to end the season on a positive note.

“It was really nice to end the season on a high. I think we all wanted to play well today. And we were able to come out on top of that bottom tier. It’s not where we obviously want to be, but it was nice to win that tier,” added Horsfield.

“We wanted to finish really strong. And it was nice to see that resolve on the golf course. I birdied five of the last six, Ian birdied three of the last five, and Henrik finished strong after that start.

“It was just one of those days where we just sort of kept patient. I wanted to finish on a high, with this being the last LIV event for a few months now.”

The team was obviously hoping for a much higher finish after missing out on podium for a second straight season, but the closing stretch put them in good mood and looking ahead of returning to the 2025 season with a renewed vigour.

“Our top priority will be to start strong next season,” said Co-Captain Stenson. “We will just have to forget 2024, work harder in the off season and come back stronger next year and make an early impact.”