Broadhurst wins in Lisbon

Quinta da Marinha's nightmarish final two holes served up one of the most dramatic finishes in the long history of the Portuguese Open on Sunday.

And out of carnage stepped Paul Broadhurst to win his first PGA European Tour win in 10 years.

The 39-year-old Midlander edged home by one shot at 13 under par from 1999 Open champion Paul Lawrie but only after Broadhurst had bogeyed the 18th and another contender, Barry Lane, had taken NINE there.

Lane would have followed up his superb win in the British Masters last year but his quintuple-bogey nine after driving into a bush and then hitting out of bounds scuppered his chances.

The trio were by no means the only three to suffer at the treacherous 473-yard, par-four closing hole at Quinta da Marinha.

It topped the Reuters Stats as the toughest on the course with an extraordinarily high 4.63 shots the average return there.

Lane suffered a catastrophic final hole in Portugal

There were just 23 birdies there all week but no less than 179 bogeys and 56 double-bogeys as the pure length of the hole coupled with an extremely small, sloping green caused havoc in the windy, generally wet conditions.

The preceding hole, also a par four but a yard shorter, took its fair share of casualties too, according to the Tour's official Reuters Stats.

There were even fewer birdies there - 22 - and 151 bogeys and 34 doubles, leaving it with another high average score of 4.44.

Lawrie, whose last of five Tour wins came three years ago in the Wales Open, came to grief at the 17th when he took seven there on Sunday to finish SIX over for the hole overall during the week following a six on the Friday and a third-round five.

Broadhurst's key to his fifth Tour win and first since the 1995 French Open was his performance at the four par fives over which he finished 10 under par for the week.

He particularly relished the 500-yard seventh and 531-yard 13th which he birdied every day of the week.

Otherwise, he simply generally kept the ball in play on a course, new to the Tour, which could bite you if you strayed off the straight and narrow.

He hit three out of four greens in regulation figures (13th overall) and putted well too (29 putts on average for fifth overall in the field).

Over the years, Broadhurst's work on the greens have ensured he has remained competitive save a couple of years after surgery on a serious hand injury in 2000.

He has regularly averaged around the 28-29 putts-per-round mark to convert his generally accurate iron play into birdies and so pocket decent-sized pay cheques, topped off by Sunday's of �144,000.