WOOLBANK'S VITAL PUTT

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31230, 30 November 1966, Page 15

WOOLBANK'S VITAL PUTT

(By

M. S. WOLVERIDGE)

A beautiful day, a testing wind, a little bit of luck, P. W. Thomson and T. J. Woolbank were the chief ingredients in the dramatic finish to the Wills Masters at Russiey last Saturday.

The sun and wind were drying out the greens rapidly making them treacherous around the hole, indeed toward the end of the afternoon one or two of them approached the great championship greens of Troon and Muirfield for their lightning pace. These are conditions under which Thomson has few equals. The 18th hole at Russley is a good par four hole, but into the wind can best be described as "mean.” Thomson, the great champion, would get his four somehow or other and that he did. This left the stage for the young Australian, T. Woolbank, who had performed such extraordinary feats to date, needing a four to tie Thomson for the title. Then, a bit of bad luck and into the bunker on the left side of the green went Woolbank’s second shot.

Now, a bit of good luck, though judging from the expression on Woolbank’s face as he saw it perhaps he did not realise his good fortune at the time, his ball was plugged. The shot to play from such a lie Is to close the clubface slightly and strike the sand behind the burled ball a sharp descending blow. The ball will pitch out and generally run twice the distance of the carry. Where the pin was situated in the right hand corner of the green, his ball could finish nowhere else from that lie if he played the shot correctly, which he did.

His luck was in plugging his second shot into the left band bunker instead of the bunker on the right, from which he would have had no shot. His subsequent three footer will remain a classic in the minds of those who saw it for many years to come and to Woolbank, for the rest of bis life. He baulked and instead of going through with it in a bad frame of mind, had the wonderful presence to stop, feel the crowd with him and finally, his mind clear, to knock the ball into the bole for a par four, to share the title. That final putt, which so many of us witnessed, was a very tremendous personal achievement for Woolbank. A miss may have meant an irredeemable failure that could have had a drastic effect on his life as a tournament golfer. A dozen years ago, P. Alliss and B. J. Hunt, two promising young Englishmen playing in their first Ryder Cup matches, came to the last green before the world needing to hole similar length putts to earn points in their matches which would give Britain the Ryder Cup Trophy for the first time in many years.

They both missed and the aftermath had remained to haunt them to this day. Instead of two world beaters, which they really should be, they are two grand players with excellent records, but are given no possible chance of winning a really big one, They are affected in strange ways and from my conversations with them and with their friends, it is all due to three tragic feet. Those same three feet for Woolbank may be the steps on which he might build a glorious career. I hope so.