The innovative format promised captivating golf – and the Andalucía Costa del Sol Match Play 9 at La Cala Resort lived up to its billing. After two days of stroke play, the top 32 players advanced to nine-hole match play rounds over the weekend, when one of the most epic duels was between Gavin Moynihan, who became the youngest Irish Amateur champion in history when he won as a 17-year-old in 2012, and local favourite Pablo Martín Benavides, who is on the comeback trail after some lean seasons.

The pair could not be separated after nine holes and three further play-off holes of their match for a place in the last eight, before the Irishman prevailed on the par-four fourth of the Asia Course, hitting a stunning shot to less than half a metre.

Moynihan eventually went all the way to the final after edging out Marcus Kinhult one-up in his quarter-final then knocking out top seed Charlie Ford 3&2 in the semi-final.

Another 22-year-old, Englishman Aaron Rai, made his own way to the final with victories over Robin Sciot-Siegrist (2&1) and Tom Murray (two-up).

Both players were in fine form in the final, with Rai striking first by taking the first two holes with back-to-back birdies. Moynihan responded with gains of his own on the third and fourth holes, but after Rai holed an eight-metre putt to halve the fifth the momentum changed. He rallied to birdie the sixth and seventh and reach two-up with two to play.  

Moynihan narrowly missing a birdie putt on the eighth, and Rai sank the two-metre putt for his second European Challenge Tour victory in two months, following the season-opening Barclays Kenya Open.

Rai is now well placed to claim the three wins needed to guarantee automatic promotion to the European Tour. “It is an incredible start and obviously puts you in a very good position for the rest of the season,” he said. “I think to win full stop is also incredible, no matter when it is in the year. It is not too different from my first victory as a win is still a win and it doesn’t happen very often in a golfer’s career.

“I think the format this week was very good. It was short enough to make is interesting to watch, but long enough to give yourself a chance of recovering if you don’t get off to the best of starts – so it’s a very good mix. I obviously got off to a very good start in the final, but that was only two holes in and you have to stay focused as seven holes is still a long way to go in this format.

“Gavin came back at me, and even when I went one-up at the sixth I still felt as though there was a long way to go. It was a really close match – we birdied six of the eight holes between us – so I knew I couldn’t make any slip-ups over the next few holes. When I saw Gavin’s putt just miss on the eighth I felt pretty confident. I knew it was for the match, but I just managed to keep my cool.”

In the other final afternoon matches, Ford beat Murray 2&1 to take third place, Sciot-Siergrist defeated Kinhult 3&2 for fifth place, and Matthew Baldwin swept aside Oliver Lindell 3&2 to finish seventh.

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