Victor Perez and Grant Forrest had to make birdie at the par-4 18th to avoid a playoff — or force their own — at Club de Campo Villa de Madrid and win the Open de España on Sunday.
With pressure mounting, Perez rolled his third shot past the hole before settling for par. Moments later, Forrest knocked down his birdie attempt to win the tournament as well as qualify for the 2027 Masters and the 2027 Open Championship at St. Andrews.
“It’s fairy tale stuff,” Forrest said on the 18th green. “To be going to Augusta, I can’t get my head around it. I was close in The Amateur championship 11 years ago. You can have a great career in this game and still never get to go to Augusta so I cannot believe it.”
Forrest made three bogeys on his front nine and only got back to even par in the final round when he birdied the par-5 14th. Nonetheless, his 1-under 70 was enough to hold off a crowded leaderboard.
“It was just a matter of keeping yourself in it, and I think we did that really well by getting a couple of putts to go at the right time,” said Forrest. “Just stuck in there so well despite a few frustrating things.”
Spain’s Eugenio Chacarra, playing through a broken toe this week in front of his hometown fans in Madrid, birdied the final hole to take the clubhouse lead at 13 under.
Chacarra’s putter was on fire on the front nine, where birdied four times and eagled the par-5 seventh to move to within a shot of the lead.
The shortstick ran a bit cold on the back nine, where the 24-year-old made par on the first seven holes before finding trouble at the par-3 17th — a hole that tripped up a few different players on Sunday.
The final three holes undid Jacob Skov Olesen and Joe Dean who shared the lead Sunday on the back nine. Olesen bogeyed the 17th, his first mistake in more than a dozen holes. Moments later, Dean dropped a stroke at the 16th to fall back to 12 under.
Dean, the 54-hole co-leader, doubled the same hole on Saturday, and wound up losing a total of five strokes on Nos. 16 and 17 over the weekend. Dean finished T-5 with Dan Brown, who birdied his final five holes to card a 7-under 64 — good for the low round of the day.
Olesen couldn’t reach Chacarra’s clubhouse lead at 13 under, settling for a par putt on the final hole. He finished solo fourth.