Scotland’s Marc Warren made the leap from Challenge Tour Number One to European Tour Champion when he claimed his maiden title with a play-off victory over Sweden’s Robert Karlsson in the EnterCard Scandinavian Masters.
The pair had finished regulation play at Barsebäck Golf and Country Club on ten under par 278, a stroke better than South Africa's Richard Sterne. Warren made a stunning birdie at the 72nd hole for a three under par 69 to take Karlsson, who had led the final round by four strokes at one time, to the shootout as the Swede's bogey on the penultimate hole for a closing 71 eventually proved costly.
Both players bogeyed the first extra hole, and then a par at the second time of asking on the 18th, was enough to earn 25 year old Warren victory, ending the Challenge Tour jinx which has seen the previous three winners of the Rankings lose their cards in their first season.
The victorious Scot, who holed the winning putt for Great Britain and Ireland in the 2001 Walker Cup against the USA, won twice last year on his way to winning the Challenge Tour Rankings, both in play-offs which enhanced his belief this time around. He showed commendable calm to overcome Europe's form player Karlsson, who had secured a four-stroke success in the Deutsche Bank Players' Championship of Europe a week earlier.
Warren's sensational second shot out of trees to make the play-off left his ball only six feet from the hole and subsequently earned him his two-year exemption and a €266,660 first prize.
Three-putts on the sixth and seventh holes looked to have taken Warren out of the reckoning but he said that had only made him "angry" - enough to pick up the four birdies in the next 11 holes that gave him the second chance to topple Karlsson.
His scramble from a spinney to match Karlsson at the first sudden-death hole and then a composed fairway drive and shot into the green for two putts, while his opponent this time struggled in the trees, then provided his third big moment in golf.
"The Walker Cup and the Challenge Tour told me I can handle pressure," said the rookie winner after hauling up from 129th on The European Tour Order of Merir. "It just seems I look forward to pressure situations.
"I don't seem to have any fear of what can go wrong. I've got the belief that under pressure I can conjure something up. Maybe I was born with it."
Karlsson's consolation was to pick up the 177,770 Ryder Cup points for runner-up that cemented his place in the European Team against the US next month at The K Club in Ireland.
While Karlsson climbed above England's Paul Casey to sixth on The Ryder Cup table, he also overtook the Englishman for second place on The European Tour Order of Merit.
The Swede, fighting a heavy cold and nosebleeds, admitted he would have settled for second place before the tournament, having begun the week poorly before storming into a share of the lead with a course record 63 in the third round.
"It's been a strange week," Karlsson said. "After two days I was halfway back to Stockholm! So second isn't too bad the week after a win."
Third-placed Sterne had quite a weekend before signing off with a 69. On Saturday he was trapped in a Malmo hotel lift and had a worrying hour before making his third round tee-off. Then he produced his best finish of the year to end his anxiety over keeping his tour card, after missing his last five cuts.
