Martin Kaymer left little question as to who the best golfer on the planet is at the moment, as he shot a closing 66 on the Old Course at St Andrews to claim the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship as his third win in a row.
Lee Westwood will go to the summit of the official world rankings this month but it’s his Ryder Cup fourball partner, having added the Dunhill to his maiden major championship victory at the US PGA last month and the KLM Dutch Open three weeks ago, who has clearly been the dominant player over the last two months.
The £500,000-plus winner’s cheque takes his earnings to £1.66 million in just those three tournaments.
His season earnings have swelled to just under £3 million and his lead in the Race to Dubaiwhich he might have won last year had he not missed two months after breaking toes in a go-karting accidentnow looks almost unassailable.
He overhauled young John Parry and then held off another Englishman in Danny Willett, finishing with two magnificent birdies at 17 and 18 to win by three shots with a four-round, 17-under-par total of 271.
Add in his part in the Ryder Cup and the 25-year-old German hasn’t tasted defeat on a golf course since the first week in August, and he can’t explain why.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know why I have won four in a row or really three in a half in a row as the Ryder Cup was a team event,” he said.
“I’m just feeling good about my game at the moment. I’m playing very solid and it keeps happening for me.”
It kept happening for the young German in spectacular style, key birdies on the 12th, 15th and the last two holes coming just as challenges were being made by his rivals.
The birdie at the Road Hole, holing from off the green, was a prize, topped off by another at 18 with his second shot off the tarmac of Granny Clark’s Wynd.
“I’d have paid a lot of money for a par there, and I was just trying to get my two-putt, so that was lucky,” he said.
Certainly there was no hangover from the Ryder Cup for Kaymer, although he did have a bit of a head on Tuesday morning. He said, “It was the best party of my life, but nothing over the top.
“I knew that coming to St Andrews is hugely important. It’s been a dream of mine to win here since I first came here as an amateur and walked down the first fairway.
“We all owe the Old Course 100% of our focus when we play it. It was not hard for me to be motivated to try and win here.”DubaiKaymer moves to fourth in the world as a result of the win, but he believes Westwood is deserving of the honour of displacing Tiger Woods as world number one after a 287-week reign.
“To me, Lee is the best player in the world at the moment and the rankings don’t lie,” he said.
“For me the goal is to be as good as I can be and if that’s number four in the world, or number one, then I’ll take it, but Lee is the best player.
“To do what he did last week at the Ryder Cup was just fantastic. He is a role model for me and the way he helped me through our matches together last week, talking about it afterwards, was a huge help.”
Kaymer will not commit himself a decision on whether to join the US Tour, preferring to wait.
“I can’t answer that because the goal for me this year is to win the Race to Dubai and I still have a few weeks before I decide.”
Third-round leader John Parry showed an admirable willingness to stick around for long spells, when the chill wind off the North Sea bit hard for the first time during the event and it felt as if winter had arrived.
He bogeyed the first to give Kaymer, who had birdied the hole minutes earlier, immediate encouragement, but the tenacious Yorkshireman stuck in and kept with his distinguished rival, only two years his senior.
However, when Parry bogeyed the 14th to put Kaymer out on his own on the leaderboard, it was the end of his challenge, as he drove into gorse bushes on the long 14th and took a double-bogey seven.Number oneNo sooner had one product of the 2007 Walker Cup team dropped out of the picture than another, in the shape of Willett, sprang forward to challenge Kaymer.
At least this time the German had a close-up view as he they were playing together, and when Willett holed from off the green at the 14th for eagle to tie for the lead, it was all too brief as Kaymer responded with a birdie four.
Willett stuck close to Kaymer until the 17th where the German landed the first of two killer blows, although Parry matched his feat with two birdies to finish and get back into third place on his own.
Gary Boyd, the protege of Ian Poulter, shot 68 for fourth place while defending champion Simon Dyson matched Kaymer’s final round 66, the best of the day, to finish in a tie for fifth with Scot Martin Laird and Spaniard Alvaro Quiros.
Westwood needed first or second to claim the top spot in the world from Woods but his one-over 73 was good enough for a seven-under total and a share of 11th, not bad considering the flare up of his calf muscle injury.
“If it had not been the Dunhill and if I hadn’t been partnered by (tournament owner) Johann Ruppert I would not have bothered coming,” said Westwood, who will move to number one anyway later this month, even though he plans to rest his injury between now and the season-ending Dubai World Championship.
“I’m not allowing myself to think about being number one until it happens. It’s something I’ve always dreamed of and I’ll take it any way it comes.”
The pro-am part of the event was won by former champion Robert Karlsson, partnered with Celtic FC director Dermot Desmond, who finished with a cumulative 30 under par.