Joost drives off with the loot at BMW Indoor event

Joost Luiten is to be doubly congratulated in not only capturing the inaugural BMW Indoor Invitational but the most affable Dutch golfer is donating his winning pay cheque to two charities.

Luiten’s six-under-par 66, where all players took part from their homes on a golf simulator depicting the Old Course at St Andrew’s, handed the current World No. 98 victory by two strokes in an 18-player field.

The 34-year old, and winner of six European Tour titles, indicated he intends to split the €10,000 prize money between his own charity, the Joost Luiten Foundation, and the Eramus Medical Centre, a hospital in his native Rotterdam.

“It’s a good feeling to win the inaugural event,” Luiten said on the European Tour’s website. “We’ve been doing nothing for such a long time, so it is nice to get that feeling of competition going again.

“You try to stay fit and practise the way you can indoors, but it is different, so it is good to have the some nerves and that feeling of actually competing and trying to beat everybody else.

“That’s the most fun for us and that is why we are golf professionals. We have been missing that feeling for a long time and it was good to get it back and to do well as well.”

Frenchman Damien Perrier finished second, while Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer was two shots back in the first of five tournaments using the latest simulator technology.