Professional Career
Molinari earned his European Tour card for 2005 through qualifying school. He finished in 86th place on the tour's Order of Merit in his rookie season.
In May 2006, Molinari claimed his first European Tour victory, becoming the first Italian since Massimo Mannelli in 1980 to win the Telecom Italia Open. This victory helped him finish 38th on the Order of Merit. Molinari didn't win on Tour between 2007 and 2009 but during that time he recorded twenty top-10 finishes including three runner-up finishes. He finished 60th on the Order of Merit in 2007, 24th in 2008 and 14th in the Race to Dubai in 2009. In October 2009, Molinari reached the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time.
On 29 November 2009, Molinari, along with his older brother Edoardo, led Italy to their first World Cup victory at the Omega Mission Hills World Cup in China. In August 2010, he represented Europe in the 2010 Ryder Cup which took place at Celtic Manor Resort. Europe defeated the United States 14½–13½.
2010 was Molinari's best year on Tour to date. On 7 November 2010, Molinari won the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, China. He defeated Lee Westwood by one stroke, finishing at 19-under par. The win moved him into 14th in the Official World Golf Ranking, his highest ranking to date. He also recorded eleven top-10 finishes including two runner-up finishes en route to a 5th place finish in the Race to Dubai.
Molinari had a steady 2011 without any further victories but did record seven top-10 finishes, including a 3rd place at the WGC-Cadillac Championship. He finished the year ranked 21st in the Race to Dubai.
Molinari picked up his third win on the European Tour on 6 May 2012 at the Reale Seguros Open de España. He was four strokes out of the lead going into the final round but fired a 65 (–7), the best round of the tournament, to win by three strokes over Alejandro Cañizares, Søren Kjeldsen and Pablo Larrazábal. In July 2012, the week before the The Open Championship, Molinari lost in a playoff at the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open. He was defeated on the first playoff hole by Jeev Milkha Singh.
Molinari was a member of Europe's Ryder Cup team that won in 2010. At the 2012 Ryder Cup he halved with Tiger Woods the last singles match on the final day. The half-point meant Europe not only completed a comeback from 10–6 down at the start of the final day to retain the cup, but won it outright by a score of 14½ points to 13½.
Read more about this topic: Francesco Molinari
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or career:
“... all professional ideologies are high-minded. Hunters, for instance, would not dream of calling themselves the butchers of the woods.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)
“What exacerbates the strain in the working class is the absence of money to pay for services they need, economic insecurity, poor daycare, and lack of dignity and boredom in each partner’s job. What exacerbates it in upper-middle class is the instability of paid help and the enormous demands of the career system in which both partners become willing believers. But the tug between traditional and egalitarian models of marriage runs from top to bottom of the class ladder.”
—Arlie Hochschild (20th century)