Genworth Financial celebrated its inaugural year as Official Sponsor of The European Tour Statistics, with the end of year Awards ceremony at Valderrama where four of the eight category winners were confirmed.
In the Driving Accuracy category, Australian Peter O’Malley once again topped the table with just under eleven fairways per round. Heading into the Volvo Masters O’Malley has hit an amazing 835 fairways out of the 1036 he has teed up on this year.
In the Driving Distance category, winner of the opening event on The 2007 European Tour, Spaniard Alvaro Quiros topped the charts, with an impressive average drive of 308 yards, especially commendable bearing in mind the wet conditions that have followed many of the Tour stops this year.
Quiros had earlier proved the old golfing mantra of “Drive for Show, Putt for Dough” as he hold the opening putt on Genworth Financial’s Putts for Charity initiative in the Volvo Masters tented village.
Thailand’s Thaworn Wiratchant has had the least average Putts per Round, but sits in exactly opposite position in the Greens in Regulation category. It is the altogether more consistent Retief Goosen of South Africa who has topped an outstanding leaderboard in the Greens in Regulation category, with the names of England's Lee Westwood, Ernie Els of South Africa and Swede Henrik Stenson close behind.
Els is current leader of the Stroke Average category and it will take a monumental effort of 11 under par for Justin Rose of England to sneak ahead from this week’s final tournament, the Volvo Masters.
The other categories still to be decided are Scrambles, where Ireland's Padraig Harrington, owner of the most memorable up and down of the year at this year’s Open Championship, is currently sitting just behind Sweden’s Robert Karlsson.
In the other short game category, South African Richard Sterne revealed that a lesson in the sand from the short game legend Gary Player, has spurred him to greater success from the bunkers this year.
In the final category Putts per GIR, Andres Romero of Argentina, who topped both putting categories on his way to victory at the Deutsche Bank Player Championship, the week after coming so close to success at The Open, currently heads the way.
Romero also picked up a new Award from sponsor Genworth Financial, who have created the “Think it Possible Award”, to recognise outstanding performance backed by statistical success. In addition to a framed memento of his season, Romero was awarded with a fantastic donation from Genworth of €35,000 for him to donate to a charity of his choice. Romero made the donation to GOLFAID, The European Tour Player’s charity, which benefits charities local to the venues the Tour visits.
