Hennie du Plessis signed off with a three-under-par 68 on Friday in the Challenge Tour’s Sydbank Esbjerg Challenge at Esbjerg Golfklub in Esbjerg, Denmark to finish in a share of 21^st on a tournament total of three-under-par.

He made five birdies, but a double-bogey six on the par-four 12^th prevented him from finishing higher up – five-under would have secured him a top-10 finish. But he did improve to 43^rd on the Challenge Tour rankings after the play-off between Scotland’s Ewen Ferguson and Espen Kofstad of Denmark. It was won by the Dane, with Spain’s Angel Hidalgo in third. Last week’s Challenge Tour winner Ricardo Gouveia of Portugal shared fourth with another Spaniard, Ivan Cantero Gutierrez.

Three birdies on the front nine had Du Plessis moving nicely up the leaderboard, but the double-bogey put him on his heels. He responded well with a birdie straight away on the par-three 13^th, and then he picked up another shot on the 18^th. He’ll look at the three par-fives in the final round with some regret, as he was not able to pick up a birdie on any of them.

Martin Rohwer closed with a three-over 74 to finish on two-over for the tournament and a share of 45^th. Merrick Bremner finished on nine-over in 65^th after he signed for a final-round four-over 75.