Friday, January 15, 2016

Ross McGowan leads Jobug Open by 3 shots

Link to Round 2  scores in the Joburg Open

CLICK HERE

Paul Lawrie repeated his opening 69 in the second round for a halfway tally of 138. 
Ross McGowan leads by three shots at halfway after a stunning 62

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 Forrest and Syme through to last 8 of Aussie 

Amateur Championship

Two Scots, Grant Forrest (Craigielaw) and Drumoig's Connor Syme, have fought their way through to the last eight of the Australian men's amateur championship at the Metropolitan Golf Club,  Melbourne.
Unfortunately, Walker Cup player Forrest's progress was at the expense of fellow Scot Jack McDonald (Barassie) whom he beat by one hole in a great match. 
Syme reached the quarter-finals with a 2 and 1 win over Australian Will Heffernan.
Earlier in the day, Forrest had squeezed through at the 19th against Welshman Owen Edwards and Syme was a 4 and 3 second-round winner against Australian Perry Dylan.
Jack McDonald beat Aiden Didone of Australia by one hole to set up his third-round contest against Grant Forrest.



FROM THE AUSTRALIAN GOLF WEBSITE
Two down with three holes to play. No wonder leading qualifier Charles Pilon admits defeat did cross his weary mind.
Instead he took a bold approach with driver on the short but perilous par-four 16th and found a birdie that fuelled the momentum to surge into the Australian amateur quarter-finals.
The 17-year-old Queenslander finished birdie, birdie, par to overrun New Zealand's Luke Brown on Metropolitan's 18th green for a one-up victory in the third round.
"I'm not going to lie. I thought 'here we go, this is going to be a loss', but I made a gutsy play on 16, took driver and it paid off,'' he said.
"That worked and I rolled in a nice 20-footer on the next to get it back to square and kind of settle things. And made a nice easy par at the last.''
Brown's drive down the left side of the last fairway finished perilously close to the treeline, in a sandy lie. The approach shot found the bunker left of the green and the Kiwi left-hander left a 5m par putt just short of the cup.
He had seemed in control of the match in what Pilon described as a "huge'' battle for him to try to stay in touch.
"Going through nine, I was one down and he won the 10th and 11th. I was three down through 12 and then I got a good birdie on 14, squared 15 and then won the last three to win the match. So, it was quite a struggle, but I ended up getting it done,'' the victor said.
Pilon, originally from Wagga Wagga and now at the Hills International school on the Gold Coast, said he did feel the weight of expectations after being the medallist following the 36 holes of stroke play.
"A little bit, but I just tried to focus on my game and hole by hole in the matchplay and it seems to pretty much be working so far, so I won't change much,'' he said.
Pilon's quarter-final opponent is Welshman Evan Griffith who beat lone surviving South Korean male Sung-ho Yun 2 and 1.
NSW's Harrison Endycott was the most conclusive third round victor, always in control of 16-year-old Lawrence Ting of Taiwan to win 5 and 4.
He will next play Scotland's Connor Syme who beat Victorian Will Heffernan 2 and 1.
British amateur runner-up Grant Forrest eventually prevailed one hole after  a seesawing battle with fellow Scot Jack McDonald and his quarter-final foe is NSW's Travis Smyth after the Riversdale Cup winner beat fellow Aussie Joshua Armstrong by one hole.
Australian-born and American-raised Austin Bautista, who plays at Bonnie Doon in Sydney, holing a curling 6m birdie putt on the 18th and raised a fist in triumph after easing past Victorian Brett Coletta 1-up. He now plays Queenslander Shae Wools-Cobb who beat Royal Melbourne's Matias Sanchez 3 and 1.

Quarter-final line-up
Charles Pilon (Queensland) v Evan Griffith (Wales)
Harrison Endycott (New South Wales) v Connor Syme (Scotland)
Travis Smyth (New South Wales) v Grant Forrest (Scotland)
Austin Bautista (New South Wales) v Shae Wools-Cobb (Queensland)

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Europe take 3pt first-day lead in Eurasia Cup
 
Tournament: EURASIA CUP presented by DRB-HICOM
Venue: 
Glenmarie Golf and Country Club, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 


Europe produced a dominant opening day display to take a firm grip of the EURASIA CUP presented by DRB-HICOM, establishing a 4 ½-1½ lead over their Asian counterparts.

Ian Poulter and Bernd Wiesberger set the tone in the opening fourballs match by beating Anirban Lahiri and Jeunghun Wang 4&3, with the English duo of Lee Westwood and Chris Wood setting the seal on a superb start for Darren Clarke’s team by beating Kiradech Aphibarnrat and SSP Chawrasia in the sixth and final match at Glenmarie Golf & Country Club.

In between, there were convincing victories for Ross Fisher and Kristoffer Broberg (6&4 over Prayad Marksaeng and KT Kim), and Andy Sullivan and Shane Lowry (2&1 over Shingo Katayama and Wu Ashun); whilst the only defeat for Europe came in match two, which went the way of Asia as Byeonghun An and Thongchai Jaidee defeated Matt Fitzpatrick and Danny Willett 3&1.  

Perhaps the only potential cloud on the horizon for Team Europe is the knee injury suffered on the 15th hole by Victor Dubuisson, who played through the pain barrier in helping Søren Kjeldsen secure a half in their match with the Malaysian duo of Danny Chia and Nicholas Fung.

But Captain Clarke was confident the diagnosis was nothing serious, and that the Frenchman would be fit to take his place in the Saturday foursomes.
Key quotes:

Ian Poulter:
“It worked out nicely today. I think we for the most part put two balls in play. When you do that and you have good looks, you don't both have to make it on the same hole and that's exactly what we did. Darren said, listen, go out there first and get it done, that's exactly what we did today. And we dovetailed nicely. We put two balls in play for the most part and we kept them under pressure. Holed a few key putts. Especially around the turn, 12, 13, were key holes for us, and obviously that was enough to get the job done.”

Ross Fisher: “I didn't really have an inkling me and Kris were going to play together until probably Thursday, so I was quite excited. Clarkey explained why he put us together: apparently we make the most birdies together as a pairing. So we were really up for the challenge come the first tee, and just kept saying to each other, come on, let's keep the pedal down. Let's get two balls in play, that's what Clarkey reiterated to us last night at the meeting and that's what we tried to do today.”

Søren Kjeldsen: 
““That was a great match. None of us really gave anything away. I thought we had the advantage after I chipped in on 17, but he made a great chip there also. Victor plays like a rock star. He is a rock star, and I just love playing with him.”

Lee Westwood:We dovetailed well. Made quite a few birdies, no bogeys, didn’t give any holes away. Woody played well, especially around the back nine and he made some lovely putts when he needed to. They were always going to be a tough combination to beat as they are both good players and they hit a lot of fairways, so we knew we had to be on top of our game.”
Darren Clarke: “A three-point lead after day one, it's a wonderful start for Europe. There was a lot of matches there that it could have swung either way on the back nine. Halfway around, Europe were leading in all the matches. I was on the radio to a few of the other guys and said, this is match play, Asia are going to come back at some stage on the back nine, and that's exactly what they did. We had a strong couple of matches and managed to finish with a very good result.”

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