Waring finishes with flourish in Abu Dhabi to end title drought

DUBAI: England´s Paul Waring birdied the last two holes for a bogey-free six-under-par 66 on Sunday to win the Abu Dhabi Championship by two shots.

The 39-year-old, a resident of Dubai, was tied for the lead at 22-under par with Tyrrell Hatton, who also birdied his last two holes of the 9 million dollar (8.4 million euro) tournament. Waring delivered the hammer blow on the chasing pack with a 41-feet birdie putt on the par-3 17th hole, and then hit a brilliant three-wood second shot to set up a birdie on the last.

At 24-under overall, Waring finished two shots ahead of Hatton (64). World No.3 Rory McIlroy (64) was in a three-way tie for third place at 21-under alongside Matt Wallace (63) and Thorbjoern Olesen (66).

McIlroy fell one shot shy of wrapping up the Order of Merit crown ahead of the season-ending DP World Tour Championship next week.A second-place tie would have made his lead insurmountable over the second-placed Thriston Lawrence of South Africa.

Waring, who shot a course-record 61 on Friday en route to a new DP World Tour 36-hole scoring record of 19-under par, began the day one ahead of Denmark´s Niklas Norgaard, Moller and birdied the first two holes to get off to a good start.Even as others behind him made plenty of birdies, the world No. 229 kept making steady pars and raced ahead on the closing stretch.