RUSSLEY MADE CHIP-PUTT COURSE Spectacular 63 Shatters Nagle’s Course Record

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31226, 25 November 1966, Page 15

RUSSLEY MADE CHIP-PUTT COURSE Spectacular 63 Shatters Nagle’s Course Record

(By

R.T. BRITTENDEN)

Scoring which rocked Russley’s reputation as a stem test of golf marked the opening of the Wills Masters £2OOO tournament yesterday. With one of the most spectacular displays of skill and aggression ever seen on a New Zealand course, a 20-year-old Sydney professional, T. Woolbank, shattered the course record with a round of 63, no fewer than 10 under the card.

The hard-hitting young Australian had 11 birdies in his round, seven of them in the course of eight holes. At times it seemed more fantasy than fact, but one of the more startling features of it was that it left him only three strokes ahead of K. D. G. Nagle, whose 66 equalled the previous record, which he set himself in the Wills event last year.

The New Zealand representative, R. C. Murray, set a course record for amateurs with a magnificent round of 67, and there were eight players with scores under 70. Of the 77 starters, 20 equalled or beat the par of 73. The scoring generally was quite astonishing. Last year’s winner, G. F. Donald, had led at the end of the first day with 69. This time he was only one stroke more—but in equal ninth position. A stroke behind Murray, on 68, are G. B. Wolstenholme and E. A. Ball. P. W. Thomson, S. Peach and B. J. Coxon had 69’s. Sadly, R. J. Charles was well down the list, with 74. Made For Golf There was some rain in the morning, but the players who started towards the end of the field had excellent conditions. Although the fairways did not afford very much run, they were almost perfect: they looked as if they had been factory-made, by experts. The greens held the wellhit approach shot willingly, and provided beautiful putting surfaces. Only infrequently does a course beckon the golfer as Russley did yesterday; very much less often does the golfer respond so readily. Woolbank, a strongly-built dark-haired youngster, seems typical of the crop of fine golfers Australia is now producing regularly. He attacked

with tremendous confidence from the start of his round. He looked like a man expecting results, not hoping for them.

He hits the ball very vigorously, with an orthodox swing, and played some magnificent irons into the greens. Even towards the end of the round, when fame and fortune were well within sight, he showed no sign of timidity. It was attack, attack all the way. Only 26 Putts He putted with a skill quite incredible. After the round he said he was ordinarily just a sound putter, but had become normal for the day—normal, that was, for R. J. Charles. He sank several putts from 10 to 30 feet in length, and had only 26 putts for the round. Woolbank began with two birdies, but dropped a shot at the fifth, where he missed the green and a putt of four feet. It was the only 5 on his card. Lovely putting brought him birdies at the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth, to put him out in 32, five under. His gallery remained at two, with two reporters, almost until the end of his round. For this select group, he turned on a performance which made the television show look anaemic.

He missed the green at the short tenth, but recovered splendidly for his three. At the eleventh, he dropped in a swinging downhill putt of 25 feet for his birdie, had another from nearly 30 feet at the twelfth and enjoyed a little luck and another birdie

—at the 470-yard thirteenth. He pushed his drive out a little, but he was hitting the ball so well that it carried the trees and left him in light rough. It was then only a 9-iron to the green. A minute hook with his iron at the difficult fourteenth had him bunkered, but he holed a six-foot putt for his four, and played the shot of the round at the sixteenth (528 yards). There he was in lush grass in the rough at the right of the fairway, but he pounded a magnificent wood, almost pin-high on the green, and had his birdie. Sorry Head-Lift He hit a tremendous drive barely inside the tree line at the seventeenth, and then, for the only time, succumbed to the pressure of the occasion. There was a sorry head-lift when he played his approach, and he was left well short of the green. But a delicately-judged running chip gave him a putt of only three feet for his 4, and at the last hole he capped a memorable performance by sinking a nine-footer for his eleventh birdie of the round.

Woolbank has been playing professional golf for three years, and no less eminent a judge than P. W. Thomson has a high regard for his game. Woolbank won the Tasmanian Open this year, and finished first equal with F. Phillips in the New South Wales Open, only to lose the play-off.

He said it was the best round of his career. But that was hardly news. It could

have been said by almost anyone.

It was a measure of Nagle's tremendous ability that he was able, for a while at least, to challenge Woolbank for the leading position. On the tenth green, Nagle needed to sink a putt of about seven feet to be seven under the card; he was out in a remarkable 31.

But the putt did not drop, and Nagle after that never looked likely to convert his round from the astonishing to the miraculous.

Nagle, too, began with two birdies, and he had another at the sixth, with a beautiful chip. He went to four under with a 20-foot birdie putt at the short seventh, and at the ninth he found the world a capital place. From two yards short of the green, and some 40 feet from the hole, he putted in for an eagle 3—out in 31, six under. The relaxed and smiling Nagle is beyond a display of nerves. But there was a hint of diffidence about his golf after that eagle. To be sure, he had birdies at the two long holes on the second half, but they are almost inevitable, for a golfer of his class. At the tenth, a putt of about seven feet for a birdie failed. At the eleventh, he had a longer putt, and struck it poorly. He was short with iron and chip and putt to drop a stroke at the twelfth. At least twice after that he had to chip superbly to wring his pars from the ruins of indif-ferently-struck irons.