RECORD-BREAKING GOLF BY NAGLE WINS OPEN BY 12

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30605, 23 November 1964, Page 3

RECORD-BREAKING GOLF BY NAGLE WINS OPEN BY 12

Superb 26 Under For 72 Holes

Two incredible rounds of 66 and 64 by K. D. G. Nagle, at Shirley on Saturday, gave the Open championship an enduring place in the greatest stories of New Zealand sport.

Breaking the course record twice, the hearts of all his rivals repeatedly, the cheerful Australian drove, pitched and putted magnificently to put together two of the finest rounds ever played at a championship meeting.

Beneath his barrage of birdies —lB in 36 holes all opposition withered and died.

Nagle’s 72-hole total of 266 broke by one the record set by P. W. Thomson at New Plymouth in 1961. Thomson then was 17 strokes under scratch for the four rounds. Nagle’s astonishing success left him 26 under par.

At the end, he led by 12 strokes from his fellow-Australian, F. Phillips, and that margin has only once been exceeded. A. J. Shaw won by 18 strokes at Palmerston North in 1930, but he was not competing against a strong field of overseas players, as was Nagle.

Nagle’s fantastic scoring was not assisted by the occasional eagle. But he had made only three or four serious errors all day, and putted for birdies or eagles 33 times in the 36 holes. Greatest Golf

Nothing like it has been seen at Shirley, or, perhaps, anywhere else in New Zealand. There were some who said after it was all over that if Nagle could score 64, Nicklaus or Palmer might have been in the 50’s. But not even the greatest of players could have played the course with more persistent accuracy than Nagle. With his peculiar habit of tapping his club-head two or three times just short of the ball before pushing it in behind and swinging, he drove quite handsome distances, nearly always to the spot which gave him the simplest shot in to the green. Nagle is sturdy of build, strong of wrist, and he is able to shorten his grooved swing admirably. His longer irons, his pitches and his

chips were extraordinarily accurate, and on the green he was touched with genius.

Gentle Touch His measure of line and pace gave full expression to one of the golfing arts. Time and again his putts dropped sweetly into the hole—firmly enough to deny any suggestion of the tentative, gently enough to emphasise his remarkable touch and judgment. It was a magnificent tournament, not only for Nagle’s splendour. Had he not been there—and his defeat in the television tournament in which R. J. Charles is presently engaged made his arrival possible, as Thomson pointed out with mock misery—it would still have been great in every respect. The perfection of the course, and particularly the greens; the superb golfing weather—a little rain on the last afternoon apart—and the quality of the play, especially that of Phillips, would have marked out the 1964 championship, as something especial. Little Wonder Had he not been eclipsed by Nagle’s brilliance, Phillips would have had the gallery of some 3000 in ecstasies on Saturday morning. But it was little wonder that he faltered in the afternoon and could return what seemed, by comparison, to be a moderate three-under par 70, for in the morning, pursuing Nagle, he reached the turn four under the card, and had lost ground. There was excellent golf, too, from many of the others. Of the 72 rounds played, 39 were scratch or better, 11 of them under 70. The colourful crowd enjoyed it immensely, and as it gathered about Nagle, he turned on a memorable finishing burst—birdies at the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth. A Vital Putt At the seventeenth a putt of almost 30 feet over undulating ground was but an inch short of another birdie. And at the last, when he had a five-footer for his tenth birdie of the round, and the record aggregate score, his ball for once clung unwillingly to the side of the cup for an agonising second before dropping. When the golf began in still and sultry weather, Nagle had only Phillips to worry him much. Phillips was four behind, and there was a gap of three more strokes to the next players. It could have been a battle royal for first place, had Phillips possessed Nagle's lovely putting touch. It may well be that the race became a procession because of events at the fourth hole. After three, Phillips was two under, and had reduced his deficit to three. His pitch at the fourth was too firm and it would probably have gone through to the back of the green had it not hit the flagstick firmly, about a foot from the bottom.

Phillips a three-footer for another birdie, but he missed | the putt. Nagle, from the green’s edge, chipped dead and had his 4; and although Phillips played gallantly and well, he never, after that, looked like becoming a threat to Nagle.

Pulled Punches Indeed, when he started the afternoon six in arrears, it seemed that Phillips had given up the chase and was concentrating on making sure of second place, for which the South African, C. Legrange, made a very strong challenge in mid-afternoon. A prodigious driver, Phillips pulled his punches, and was usually content to keep behind Nagle off the tees. Once or twice, when there was little danger if the drive was hit off the line, he opened out and then out-distanced Nagle by 50 yards or more. But it was a circumspect Phillips who went out in the afternoon in modest par figures, and turned on a scintillating homeward run of 33, three under, only when Legrange had approached to within one stroke of him. All-Round Accuracy The story of Nagle’s rounds is simple: accuracy off the tees, accuracy to the greens, accuracy with the putter. Four birdies in the first six holes in the morning, and only one of them spectacular —a 30-foot putt at the sixth. There was another comfortable birdie at the eighth, and Nagle was five under, 32 out. By the twelfth, where he came out of a pit and left himself a birdie putt of a foot, it was seven under. At the fourteenth, Nagle showed a fallability which was almost welcome. His drive was left of the fairway, but he had a good portion of the green showing at the right of a large bunker. He chose, however, to take the direct line to the pin and his iron pitched a foot from the safe end of the bunker. He came out only moderately well, and dropped a stroke. But this time the sixteenth held no terrors, and he went back to seven under with a birdie putt of four feet. One Error Only at the end of the round did Nagle weaken. At the seventeenth, he had a putt of only about three feet for a birdie, but did not read the borrow properly and missed the hole completely. And at the last green, his birdie putt of about nine feet was struck unconvincingly. His only error in the afternoon was in missing the third green and dropping a stroke. There had been a birdie before that, and there was a run of four more from the seventh to the tenth. The last one was built on a magnificently faded iron from the rough, just inside the tall pines which flank the fairway on the right. Then came the final run of birdies—a 15-foot putt at the fourteenth, one of 30 feet at the next, a four-footer at the sixteenth, before the fivefooter in front of the crowd at the club-house. It was a tired but smiling Nagle who acknowledged a movingly warm ovation from the gallery. Putting Weaker There were many times during the day when Phillips seemed to be playing better golf than Nagle. Far more often than not, Phillips was inside Nagle on the green. He did not have the putting magic, however, and he made just a few more errors. But it was grand golf from Phillips, whose rounds were 68 and 70. He did not drop a stroke in the morning until he played a weak pitch from a bad lie in the rough at the eighteenth and there were six birdies in the round. A pulled second at the tenth found a bunker and he only had a par 5 there. He had a less happy start in the afternoon, dropping shots at the long fourth and the short ninth. But he was out in par 37. and played great golf for his homeward 33, including a fine 14-foot putt for a birdie on the last green. In all he had 61 putts in the day, Nagle only 56. Nagle’s cards were: Morning Out:—

Far 4,4, 3,5, 5,4, 4,3, 3—37 Nagla 4,3, 3,4, 4. 3,4, 4, 3—32 In:— Far S, 4,4, 3,4, 3,3, 4, 4—34 Nagla 4,4, 3,3, 5,3, 4,4, 4—34 AFTERNOON Out: 4,3, 4,4, 5,4, 3,4, 2—33 In: 4,4, 4,3, 3,2, 4,4, 3-31

Thi s slice of luck gave