Richard Sterne played one of the shots of his life to claim his first DP World Tour title in 13 years at the 2026 Soudal Open.
Trailing countryman Zander Lombard for most of the day, the South African timed his attack to perfection, making a stunning eagle at the 17th hole to move to 18 under par and go atop of a stacked leaderboard at Rinkven International Golf Club.
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The challenge was too much to ask for the chasing pack, with the 44-year-old’s round of 66 enough to register his first win since the 2013 Joburg Open some 4,851 days ago.
The now seven-time DP World Tour winner has overcome his fair share of injuries in the years since, undergoing three wrist operations, a disc replacement and hip surgery, with his story one of resilience and perseverance.
Sterne’s win marks the sixth by a South African on the 2026 Race to Dubai, following two each for Jayden Schaper and Casey Jarvis and Yurav Premlall’s success at the Estrella Damm Catalunya Championship.
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Marcus Kinhult led a large group to finish in a share of second at 16 under, the Swede holing a long putt at the last for his seventh birdie in a bogey-free 64.
Englishman Marcus Armitage signed for a 66 to join him, as did Frenchman Victor Perez, while Kota Kaneko, Jorge Campillo and Jacob Skov Olesen rounded out those two shots behind the winner.
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Lombard and compatriot MJ Daffue were a further shot back, alongside Ben Schmidt, Nathan Kimsey and Gregorio De Leo at 15 under par.
Amateur Anthony De Schutter finished the week as the leading Belgian at nine under, achieving his goal afront of an incredible home crowd.
Player quotes
Richard Sterne: It’s been a tough ride. A lot of injuries, a lot of hard things that I’ve gone through but to get back in the winner’s circle is… quite unexpected today, to be honest. I thought I was one behind playing the last but then got on to the 18th green and had a quick look at the board and was quite surprised.
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They were hard times, I didn’t think I was going to get through a lot of them. Three wrist ops, a disc replacement, hip surgery, I’ve been through it all so I’m pretty happy. I’ve been putting in a lot of hard work and trying to figure things out. It’s been tough – it’s been very tough, to be honest, the last couple of years – but there’s been some signs of good things and clearly to get a win I needed to play really decently.
I thought I was still behind (on 17), I thought Zander was still on 19 (under) – I wasn’t really looking at boards, to be honest. It was a long way for me, I had a five wood in the bag, I don’t have a three wood, it was 276 and I needed to hit a little draw on there to get the distance. It just came out as good as I could, it ended up great – three, four feet away – and yeah, it was one of the best shots I’ve hit.
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One of the main goals was to win with my children actually seeing it. The oldest is 13 soon, so it’s been pretty much that long so it’s nice to eventually let them see me win, which is the main driver. Then I suppose just to prove to myself that I can still compete at this age, after all I’ve been through. I’ve had a lot of injuries; I’ve probably been out six or seven years with injuries. I’ve been out here 24 years I think, but with those injuries it’s only been 16, 17 years. Having that time off kind of made me realise that I still wanted to give it a go. I worked very hard in the gym to get my body back and be able to get through what I was going through, there were tough times but here I am.
It’s great to see the young guys coming through, there are some exceptional players, I think they’re going to be quite dominant going forward. But just to keep them a little bit on their toes, it’s nice to do that.
