Tied 2nd finish for Thongchai in France

Thailand’s Thongchai Jaidee’s hopes of winning his third title on European soil was denied after he dropped five shots in his first four holes and had to eventually settle for a tied-second finish at the Alstom Open de France on Sunday.

The Black Mountain star was on track for another grandstand finish but an uncharacteristic start by the Thai legend under testing weather conditions left him with a mountain to climb before he steadied the ship to close his campaign with a one-over-par 72.

A four-day total of four-under-par 280 saw the Thai share second place with American Kevin Stadler, one shot behind Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell, who successfully defended a tournament for the first time in his career.

“I couldn’t hole anything especially on the front-nine as the weather was really bad. I started off really bad but luckily I managed to play better in the back-nine. I would like to thank all my sponsors for believing in me

Anyway, it’s okay. I’ll try again but the most important thing this week is I’ve made a good jump on the world rankings, which is important,” said Thongchai.

Over at the Aegean Airlines Challenge Tour in Germany, Sweden’s Pelle Edberg signed off in tied-39^th place after a 72 while Germany’s Alex Cejka added a 71 to his previous rounds of 71, 68 and 68 to take tied-seven place at the Nova Scotia Open, a web.com event in Canada.