Dubai resident golfers Adrian Meronk (Pol) and Chiara Noja (Ger) continued their fine seasons by finishing tied fifth in the $2 million KLM Open and tied second in the €300k 54 hole Belgian Open respectively.
Meronk had rounds of 69. 70. 69. and 71 for a nine under par total.
He finished four shots back of Abu Dhabi Golf Club Honorary Member Pablo Larrazabal (Spain) thanks to his 2014 victory in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. This is Larrazabal’s ninth career victory on the DP World Tour. Dubai based fellow Spaniard Adrian Otaegui finished in sole second two back of the champion.
Meronk remains fourth in the 2022 – 2023 Race to Dubai Rankings with 1595.82 points behind Jon Rahm (Spain), Rory McIlroy (NI) and Victor Perez (Fr) in the DP World Tour Rankings and is up one spot to number 45 in the Official World Golf Rankings.
2023 Ryder Cup
Meronk is now fourth on the European Points List for the 2023 Ryder Cup and ninth in the World Points List with Captain Luke Donald having six picks in addition to the top three qualifiers in both categories above.
Chiara Noja finished two back of the champion Patricia Isabel Schmidt (Ger) winning €22,500. It moves her upto fifth in LET’s Race to Costa Del Sol OOM Rankings and she is third on the season long Money List.
Chiara said after her final round, ‘I explored a lot of the golf course,’ said the 17 year old. ‘I putted pretty decently all week. I think it was a pretty decent week, obviously not my A-game a lot of the time but I scrambled pretty nicely around the course, and I put together a good week.
‘It was not meant to be today but Patricia played amazing golf and she really deserved that today. I wish I had holed that birdie putt on 18 though for outright second – that hurt.
‘I seem to have a little thing about finishing second in Belgium. It’s my third year in a row, not at this tournament but I have done it twice on LET Access Series, so this has added to it. I’m looking forward to going into the next week.’
