The field for the Danish Golf Championship was stacked with local talent, including brothers Rasmus and Nicolai Hojgaard, Amateur Champion Jacob Skov Olesen and the leader heading into the final round, Lucas Bjerregaard.
However, ultimately, French players dominated the top of the leaderboard, as Frederic LaCroix claimed his maiden DP World Tour title.
The day began with LaCroix four back and Bjerregaard looking for his first win on the circuit for nearly six years, and he began confidently, with a birdie on the par-5 first.
However, if that offered reassurance to the home crowd that one of the 23 Danish players who began the event would lift the trophy, it soon began to look shaky for Bjerregaard with back-to-back bogeys on the second and third.
Another birdie and a bogey followed on the fifth and sixth before he found the trees with his tee shot on the eighth. He had to drop a shot, and, after a visit to the greenside bunker, made a double bogey to leave his task even more arduous.
By the time play had moved onto the back nine, three Frenchmen – LaCroix, David Ravetto, who won last week’s D+D Real Czech Masters, and Romain Langasque, occupied the top three spots on the leaderboard, and it was Lacroix who took his chance.
While Bjerregaard eventually labored to a two-over 73, LaCroix’s round was eight shots better. Like Bjerregaard, he birdied the first, but in contrast to the Dane, he maintained his consistency throughout.
Further birdies followed at the fifth, seventh, 10th, 12th and 15th as he opened up a four-shot lead over Langasque and Bjerregaard heading into the final hole, with Ravetto and another Frenchman, Adrien Saddier, back in the clubhouse in fourth and fifth.
LaCroix’s round had been bogey-free, so a final-hole disaster to give his two nearest challengers a glimmer of hope never looked likely and, sure enough, he made par on the 18th to maintain his lead with Bjerregaard and Langasque still on the course.
Frederic Lacroix claims a first Tour title and becomes the first French winner of the Danish Golf Championship 🏆#DanishGolf pic.twitter.com/3mcmV0aJVLAugust 25, 2024
With LaCroix’s victory assured, it was just a matter of by how much he would win, and the remaining duo finished with pars to hand him the title by four shots for his first professional triumph since the 2019 Saint-Malo Golf Mixed Open on the Alps Tour.