Great effort by Tom Lewis Down Under

2009 British boys' champion Tom Lewis

loses play-off to O'Malley for NSW Open

Australian Peter O’Malley has won the 2010 New South Wales Open
following a three-way play-off with South Australian Peter Cooke and the 2009 British boys amateur champion, Tom Lewis, who is a member at Welwyn Garden City GC, the London club of which Nick Faldo was a member during his amateur career.
The win for O’Malley is his first PGA Tour of Australasia title in five years, his last win coming at the 2005 NZ PGA Championship where he also won a play-off.
Out in the final group of the day O’Malley took a few holes to warm up, before rediscovering his groove at The Vintage with three consecutive birdies on holes 4, 5 and 6.

But it wasn’t all going O’Malley’s way- a triple bogey on the 11th brought him right back to the pack where the big mover on the front nine, Tom Lewis, was waiting.

The 19 year old (pictured by Tom Ward), a candidate for a place in the GB and I Walker Cup team against the United States at Royal Aberdeen next September 10 and 11, had notched five birdies in the first seven holes, but stumbled on the eighth with a double bogey.

In a tension-filled back nine, the lead see-sawed between O’Malley, new course record holder Cooke and Lewis, resulting in a three-way tie for first place at the end of the 72 holes.

The trio headed back to the par-418th to determine the winner in a sudden death play-off.

After playing the 18th hole twice more, Cooke was the first to stumble, leaving O’Malley and Lewis to fight it out for the third time on the 18th.

While O’Malley landed his second shot 5½ metres slightly uphill from the pin on the green, Lewis hit his second fairway shot into a bunker alongside the green.

Lewis extricated himself from the bunker but two-putted to hand the championship to O’Malley, much to the delight of the gallery who cheered home one of Australia’s most successful professionals.

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