SPECTACULAR FINISH TO CLASSIC Lister plays superbly as Good meets disaster

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33404, 10 December 1973, Page 28

SPECTACULAR FINISH TO CLASSIC Lister plays superbly as Good meets disaster

(By

R. T. BRITTENDEN)

Russley’s sunlit stage was crowded with principals yesterday, when the fifth Garden City Golf Classic went into its final act. And in a tense, spectacular finish, the tall, smiling J. M. Lister came from behind to take the curtain calls.

With them also went $2500, and an additional piece of . .j i i_ f j *4.1 embroidery 7 on the winner's jacket which he was presented with on his victory last vear.

At the start of the day it looked like being a solo performance. On Saturday the 24-year-old D. Good, with a supremely skilful and exciting round of 65, had left his nearest rival seven strokes behind.

But he faltered at the start of the final round. Lister, all aggression, came home with a final 67, and beat Good and another Australian, R. Shearer by a single stroke. Lister’s total was 277 — 16 under the card. Leeway of nine It was exciting golf, and splendid entertainment for a crowd of some 4000 spectators. Lister, nine behind Good when he started yesterday, caught him at the eleventh hole. After 13. it was a threeway tie. It was only at the fifteenth, where he chipped in from below a bank for a birdie 2, that Lister became the outright leader. Shearer caught him again with a birdie at 16, but three-putted 17 and did not get on the last green with his second shot. Good came to the last green needing a 40-foot putt to tie with Lister, who stood with the spectators at the back of the green. He made a brave attempt but passed the hole by four feet. With him was K. D. G. Nagle, who also pressed the leaders throughout the final round and finished a stroke behind Good and Shearer. Unlikely start There was no indication on Saturday that Good was to leave the field in disarray. He started with a formal 4, and at the long second hole, at which the professionals look for a birdie, he had a 6. He started his run at the

par-5 sixth, and from that point it was astonishing. He hit fairway after fairway, green after green, and sank putt after putt. He had his second birdie at 7, and 15 feet, but missed one at S, had two putts for another at 9. He was two under going out in 35. Kept his cool His homeward run consisted of six 3c and three 4s — six under the card for the nine holes. At 16, it was an eagle from 35 feet, and there were birdies at 12, 13. 14 and 18. Good was nine under for the last 13 holes, back in 30 — and this quiet young man felt it should have been 27. Birdie putts had escaped him at 10, 11 and 15. To his very great credit, Good was as composed during his nightmare start yesterday as he had been in the full flush of Saturday’s success. He has never won a four-round tournament, and there was more than the big gest cheque involved. But apart from his incessant, use of chewing gum, he gave no hint of motion when things went awry.

Good’s ability to keep the ball straight from the tees deserted him in that first critical hour. A hook and a bunker cost him a shot at the first, and he had a dreadful 8 at the second. He cut a drive into trees, put a second out of bounds by a couple of inches, played a modest fourth, and then went into a bunker. When Good missed the green at the short third, the talk was of the 1970 tournament, when P. Harvey led by nine shots at the start of the last round and came home, almost on his hands and knees, by two. Fighting finish But Good holed a sixfooter for his par, and this seemed to set him to rights. His lead had shrunk dramatically — Lister caught seven of the nine shots in the first four holes—but Good played courageously and was level with the card for his last 16 holes.

He had many birdie attempts which failed by minute margins, and although his waywardness off the tees often put him in trouble, he recovered very well.

A remarkable explosion from a bunker at 6 gave him an easy birdie, but he missed a good birdie chance at 9. Then the strain of missing birdie putts began to tell a little.

He three-putted 11 and 14, surrendering the lead, and

although Good closed the gap with his fine birdie at the 518-yard sixteenth, Lister was in charge by then and held on.

Shearer, another fluent striker of the ball, and a long hitter, went with Lister during his exciting charge, and his great birdies at 12 and 13 kept him in line. He had another at 16. but he hit the the hole twice in three-putt-ing the seventeenth. From a few yards at the back of the green, Shearer needed to chip in at the final hole to tie. It was a good try, but it never threatened to succeed. Lister said before he started that he was going after everything in the final round—and attack he certainly did. A birdie at 2 started him, and then he played the shot of the day, a beautifully-struck high iron into the short third, the ball thundering into the turf, and turning and moving only three or four inches, to stop a foot from the hole. A massive drive at the shortened fourth brought another birdie and there was another at 6. A loose tee shot cost him a stroke at 7 but he birdied 9 to turn in 33. Orthodox approach Lister had his sixth birdie after all but driving the eleventh, and for once in a way approached the thirteenth hole in an orthodox fashion. The tees being right back, or the throng of people along the rough at the right, perhaps persuaded him to avoid the short-cut. His drive was cut a little and caught the trees, but he had a clear shot and found the green, only to three-putt. Lister was very much in danger then, and he had to sink a dreadfully testing 12footer for his par at 14. When the , ball dropped, he grinned

broadly; he must have felt it was to be his day. Then came that delicate, rewarding chipin at 15. ■ Lister produced a shocking shot at 17. His drive was fiercely hooked, and finished on the far side of the sixteenth fairway. But he put his second pin-high, and had a safe 4. He played the last hole safely and well.

Lost the spark Nagle, in both the last rounds, could rarely hole a putt, but he was eminently steady. R. J. Charles also played well to have his fourth sub-par round, but the flame of inspiration was lacking. And while the crowds milled around the leaders, the round of the day, by B. Smith (Australia), went almost unnoticed. He had seven birdies, dropped not a shot, and went up 32 places to seventh equal with a 66. Almost as pleased as the winners was the Russley greenkeeper (Mr R. H. Bradley). He knows his course: he had predicted a winning score of 276—-and tvas out by only one. Revenge today The Australian, D. Good, may take his revenge today, at Rangiora, for his defeat to J. M. Lister in the Garden City Golf Classic yesterday. He and Lister have a tennis engagement. Lister says Good will win. "I can't even see his service,” he added.