Golf - World Cup:Having led the tournament all week Ireland's World Cup mission ultimately ran out of steam as the pairing of Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell had to give way to brothers, Francesco and Edoardo Molinari, who won the title for Italy for the first time.
Ireland took a one shot overnight into the final round of alternate shots foursomes at Mission Hills Golf Club in China, and although they stretched that lead to three with nine holes to go, they failed to press on and finish the job.
A final round 70 left Ireland in a tie for second on 28-under-par alongside the Swedish pairing of Henrik Stenson and Robert Karlsson (69), while Italy sealed the historic one shot victory with a closing round of 68 for the 29-under-par 259 winning aggregate.
McIlroy and McDowell hit a purple patch on the front nine with four consecutive birdies from the fourth but the only problem was the run was book-ended with bogeys as they turned in two-under 34 compared to Italy and Sweden’s outward nines of 35.
By this stage fate was still in their own hands as they attempted to emulate Pádraig Harrington and Paul McGinley’s 1997 World Cup for Ireland at Kiawah Island.
However a further bogey came at the 10th as Ireland lost their momentum at a time when the Molinari partnership got into their stride with three birdies on the trot from the 11th.
Francesco drained a 30-foot birdie putt at the 12th to move one clear of the field and quickly holed another birdie effort at the next to double their advantage.
Ireland moved to within a shot of lead with a birdie at 15th, the signature hole at the Jose- Maria Olazabal designed layout. The pair battled to the end and McIlroy held his nerve to hole a difficult six-footer for par at the 17th.
There was drama to the end as McIlroy’s fine approach to the 18th set up a birdie effort, while Edoardo pushed his approach into one of the greenside bunkers. Francesco kept his nerve and pitched out to three feet before his sibling converted for par. McDowell’s birdie attempt came up just short and with it went Ireland’s chance of a play-off.
“It's been a great week. Myself and Graeme really enjoyed it, especially out there together and being in the hunt, it was a really good feeling. It's a pity we were not able to pull it off,” said McIlroy, who remained upbeat despite the disappointing bridesmaid finish for the second week running after he lost the Race to Dubai to Lee Westwood.
“I'm very happy for them (Italy). For two brothers to go out and win a title like this, it's incredible. It will be a great sense of satisfaction in the family, but also the whole country. If it wasn't going to be us to win today, I wouldn't begrudge the Italians their win. They played great - they deserved it.”
For the Italians the win capped a memorable season. “It feels really good. We probably haven’t realised what we’ve achieved. We just had to hang in there and try to finish it up in the last few holes,” said Francesco.
“We were also fortunate to hole a couple of good putts which kept up in front of everybody. We played great golf all week and it feels amazing.”
“To win by one shot against some really good teams like Ireland and (defending champions) Sweden is a great feeling. Many of the other players involved were Ryder Cup players,” added Edoardo, who came into the week in great form having won last week’s Dunlop Phoenix tournament in Japan.
Edoardo also set a Challenge Tour record by topping this season money list with earnings of €242,980 and today’s win cements his place back on the main tour.
McIlroy now heads to South Africa where is one of the star attractions at this week’s select 12-man field for the Nedbank Golf Challenge which starts at Sun City on Thursday. McDowell travels to the States for the Shark Shoot-out and is in line to play alongside Ian Poulter.
Collated final round scores and totals in The 55th World Cup of Golf Omega Mission Hills World Cup, Mission Hills GC, Olazabal Course, Shenzhen, China
(Par: 72)
259Edoardo Molinari & Francesco Molinari (Ita) 64 66 61 68
260Henrik Stenson & Robert Karlsson (Swe) 64 65 62 69, Rory McIlroy & Graeme McDowell (Irl) 58 68 64 70
262Ian Poulter & Ross Fisher (Eng) 66 69 63 64
266Ryuji Imada & Hiroyuki Fujita (Jpn) 62 71 64 69
267Robert Allenby & Stuart Appleby (Aus) 68 70 62 67
268Nick Watney & John Merrick (USA) 67 72 67 62, Rory Sabbatini & Richard Sterne (Rsa) 65 70 62 71, Alex Cejka & Martin Kaymer (Ger) 66 71 66 65, Stephen Dodd & Jamie Donaldson (Wal) 66 68 64 70, Charlie Wi & Yong-eun Yang (Kor) 64 75 61 68
271Martin Ureta & Hugo Leon (Chi) 69 67 65 70, Jhonattan Vegas & Alfredo Adrian (Ven) 67 67 65 72
272Soren Hansen & Soren Kjeldsen (Den) 66 70 66 70, Jeev Milkha Singh & Jyoti Randhawa (Ind) 67 68 65 72
273Lam Chih-bing & Mardan Mamat (Sin) 66 70 66 71, Thongchai Jaidee & Prayad Marksaeng (Tha) 67 70 67 69, Angelo Que & Mars Pucay (Phi) 68 72 64 69
274Tano Goya & Rafa Echenique (Arg) 61 75 64 74
276Thomas Levet & Christian Cevaer (Fra) 67 73 67 69, David Smail & Danny Lee (Nzl) 67 68 70 71
277Liang Wen-Chong & Zhang Lian-Wei (Chn) 65 71 68 73, Muhammad Munir & Muhammad Shabbir (Pak) 69 75 64 69, Lin Wen-Tang & Lu Wei-Chih (Tpe) 67 74 67 69
279Graham Delaet & Stuart Anderson (Can) 64 74 65 76
280Rafael Barcellos & Ronaldo Francisco (Bra) 68 75 68 69
281Sergio Garcia & Gonzalo Fdz-Castano (Spa) 69 71 67 74
284David Drysdale & Alastair Forsyth (Sco) 69 73 64 78
