Mikko Ilonen secures European Tour card for 2010 at Madrid Masters

2nd-place finish brings an end to lengthy dry spell

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Finnish professional golfer Mikko Ilonen finished 2nd in the Madrid Masters tournament at the weekend, and in so doing more or less guaranteed he will retain his European Tour card next year.
      Ilonen finished the 72 holes on 22-under, and was three strokes behind the eventual winner Ross McGowan of England.
      Ilonen is a two-time winner on the European Tour, but he has not had a top ten finish in tournaments since winning the Scandinavian Masters in Stockholm in August 2007. In 2008 his best placing was 14th, and thus far this year he had managed no closer than 19th.
     
The victories he enjoyed in 2007 gave him a two-year "immunity" from having to qualify for his card on the basis of his Order of Merit standing at the end of each season, but that exemption safety net will vanish next year.
      Going into the Madrid event, Ilonen was a good way outside the cut-off point of 115 players who had earned enough this year to merit a tour card in 2010, but the cheque for 166,000 euros that he picked up on Sunday will almost certainly put him inside the group who get a full card.
     
As it happens, Ilonen went to Madrid in almost the worst possible spirits.
      At the previous tournament in Scotland, he had played himself into contention over three days, and was looking at a lucrative top five finish, before a complete disaster on the infamous Road Hole at St. Andrews (he took an eight on the par-4 17th) sent him tumbling down to a share of 26th place.
      Having come so close to securing his card then, only to blow it, it is hardly surprising that when he teed off in Madrid his first action was to record a calamitous double-bogey 7 at the opening hole.
      He scrambled round the course in 74, two over par, but was light-years away from the top of the leaderboard on Thursday evening.
     
However, two successive rounds of 63 on Friday and Saturday put him right back in the frame by the time Sunday came around, and he started his final round in 4th place, albeit eight strokes behind the overnight leader McGowan.
      McGowan had scored a quite astonishing 60 - 12 under par - on Saturday, and it looked as though he only had to show up to collect the winner's trophy, but Ilonen had other ideas.
      McGowan struggled throughout, and finished with a one-under 71 to Ilonen's round of 66, but the lead was too great to claw it all back.
      Over the last 54 holes, Ilonen played exceptionally solidly, with not a single bogey or worse marked on his card.
     
Ilonen now has tournament earnings for the year of just over EUR 290,000, and is in 102nd place on the Order of Merit.
      He will be hoping to continue his vein of good form this week at the Portugal Masters, an event with a prize fund of EUR 3,000,000 and EUR 500,000 on offer to the winner.
      After a week off he will then play in Singapore and Hong Kong.
      Some strong results at these three events would give him an outside chance of making the cut for the Dubai World Championship in mid-November. This would require that Ilonen finish among the top 60 players on the European Tour, and at present would probably necessitate at least one top five result - or at least 200,000 euros in prize money - in the upcoming tournaments.
     
The good showing in Madrid propelled Ilonen nearly two hundred places upwards on the world rankings, from 497th to 309th, but he is still behind Roope Kakko (283rd) as the top Finn on the lists.
      Kakko is currently 151st on the European Tour Order of Merit, and still needs a few good autumn results to secure his 2010 card.
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Mikko Ilonen takes Scandinavian Masters title in thrilling finish (20.8.2007)

Links:
  PGA European Tour: Mikko Ilonen

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