GLENEAGLES, Scotland, 14 June 2004 — Britain’s Miles Tunnicliff led the Diageo Championship from start to finish to complete his second European Tour victory yesterday two years after his first.
The 35-year-old closed with a bogey-free four-under-par 68 to total 13-under-par 275, five strokes ahead of fellow-Briton Graeme McDowell, the largest winning margin on the European Tour this year by two shots.
Tunnicliff claimed his first title, the 2002 Great North Open, when playing mostly on the Challenge Tour and after visiting qualifying school 12 times.
After birdieing his opening two holes to extend an overnight three-shot lead, Tunnicliff never looked back and became the second European Tour ‘wire-to-wire’ winner of the season, following world number two Ernie Els in the Heineken Classic. McDowell, who had sacrificed a chance of pre-qualifying for the US Open by going to Gleneagles, mounted a serious challenge with five successive birdies around the turn, but then double-bogeyed the long-16th on his way to a 67.
