The best day of Spanish golfer Rafael Cabrera-Bello's career got even better late on Sunday night.
Hours after beating three of the world's top four golfers and everyone else in the stellar field that contested the Dubai Desert Classic, the Canary Islander learned that he had qualified for his first world match play championship.
In defeated Lee Westwood and Scot Stephen Gallacher by a shot in Dubai, Cabrera-Bello will play in next week's WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona for the first time as a result of rocketing from 119th into the top 64 on the latest World Rankings list
"This was the quality jump I was looking for in my game and it's offered me the opportunity to play RocketBallz MAX Irons Graphitewith the world's best players," said the 27-year-old, whose only previous European Tour win came in the low-key Austrian Open three years ago.
He achieved that with a Tour record-equalling closing round of 60.
At The Emirates a bogey-free 68 gave him the title as Westwood failed to hang onto the lead he had held for most of the final day.
Second place in the event for the third time in his RocketBallz MAX Irons Graphitewas still good enough, though, to take Westwood back to second in the world rankings, the Englishman squeezing past Rory McIlroy, who came joint fifth in Dubai by 0.004 points from
The McIlroy and Westwood had much to ponder at the end of the circuit's three-week Middle East swing.
McIlroy, the reigning US Open champion, lost by one to England's Robert Rock in Abu Dhabi after a two-shot penalty in the second round for brushing sand away that was not on the green.
He then led at halfway in Dubai last week, but fell back.
"I'm a little disappointed considering the position I was in going into the weekend, but I can't be that disappointed," he said.
"I'm pleased with how I hit the ball and that's very positive to take into the next few weeks," he said, perhaps buoyed by the fact that he finished with four birdies in his last nine holes.
Westwood, in the meantime, missed a succession of chances on Sunday, but while that should annoy him he also knows the big tournaments this season are all still to come.
Both will be in action next with RocketBallz MAX Irons Graphite at the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship, where Westwood has yet to make it past the second round in 11 attempts.
McIlroy made the quarter-finals on debut three years ago.