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Madrid - Rising Spanish star Jon Rahm clinched his first victory on home soil Sunday after overhauling overnight leader Paul Dunne of Ireland to win by two strokes in Madrid.
The 23-year-old Rahm, coming off a fourth-place finish at the Masters last weekend, carded six birdies in a closing round of 67 to finish 20 under for the tournament at the Centro Nacional de Golf.
The world number four earned his fifth career title, three of which have come on the European Tour, and joined the likes Seve Ballesteros, Sergio Garcia and Miguel Angel Jimenez as winners of the Spanish event.
"It's such a satisfying feeling," he said. "When I made the decision to come straight from Augusta it wouldn't be to just show up and walk around, I wanted to win this tournament," Rahm told europeantour.com.
"It's been amazing. It's truly been the hardest Sunday I've ever had in any tournament that I've won because the crowd wanted it so much and I wanted it so much.
"You can tell how excited everybody is, I felt that tension, I felt that stress, I felt everything magnified. They played a huge part, I came for them mainly so I'm just glad I can win this one for the Spanish people."
Dunne, who led Nacho Elvira by a stroke going into the final round, finished on 18 under par while Elvira dropped to third place on 17 under after finding the water for a double bogey on the penultimate hole.
Leading final round scores from the European Tour's Spanish Open at the Centro Nacional de Golf in Madrid on Sunday (GBR/IRL unless stated; par 72):
268 - Jon Rahm (ESP) 67 68 66 67
270 - Paul Dunne 66 65 68 71
271 - Nacho Elvira (ESP) 68 66 66 71
272 - George Coetzee (RSA) 72 66 71 63
273 - Brett Rumford (AUS) 68 66 68 71, Marc Warren 66 69 69 69, Jorge Campillo (ESP) 70 67 67 69, Henric Sturehed (SWE) 67 68 66 72
274 - Julien Guerrier (FRA) 67 69 74 64, Jacques Kruyswijk (RSA) 69 70 66 69, Hideto Tanihara (JPN) 70 70 67 67
275 - Andrew Johnston 68 68 69 70, Maximilian Kieffer (GER) 69 67 69 70, a-Victor Pastor (ESP) 67 72 69 67, Sebastien Gros (FRA) 73 67 71 64, Cho Rak-Hyun (KOR) 73 64 73 65, Alejandro Canizares (ESP) 72 67 70 66, Adrian Otaegui (ESP) 69 70 70 66, Yusaku Miyazato (JPN) 69 68 72 66, Aaron Rai 67 71 66 71
276 - Andy Sullivan 75 63 65 73, Seung-su Han (USA) 70 69 68 69, Tapio Pulkkanen (FIJ) 75 65 69 67, Andrea Pavan (ITA) 71 67 72 66, Erik Van Rooyen (RSA) 67 71 70 68, Renato Paratore (ITA) 70 70 68 68, Pablo Larrazabal (ESP) 71 65 73 67
277 - Felipe Aguilar (CHI) 72 66 70 69, Robert Rock 70 65 71 71, Callum Shinkwin 67 67 72 71, Nicolas Colsaerts (BEL) 71 67 71 68, Christiaan Bezuidenhout (RSA) 69 71 71 66, Matthias Schwab (AUT) 67 71 69 70
