Golfer again puts in brilliant effort

Press, 17 September 1985, Page 48

Golfer again puts in brilliant effort

By

BOB SCHUMACHER

Two years ago Brent Paterson competed in the Australian amateur golf championship as a virtual unknown. When that event ended, however, the young Canterbury golfer was as much in the news as the favoured Australian who beat him at the thirtyseventh hole of the final.

Paterson, aged 24, returned to Christchurch yesterday after a second attempt at the title. Again he played outstandingly well, but this time dropped out in the semi-finals, beaten at the nineteenth by the Thai No. 1, Bunchoo Ruangkit. Although of no consequence to Paterson, it was perhaps significant that Ruangkit went on to win the title at the Royal Perth course last Sunday, beating a New South Welshman, Peter O’Malley, two and one, in the 36-hole final. It was the first time in 22 years that an overseas golfer had taken the Australian match-play championship. Paterson had earlier

proved his worth in the New I Zealand team competing in Australia when notching a 1 72-hole total of 301 in the I Asia-Pacific teams cham- j pionship which preceded the 1 Australian amateur cham- 1 pionship. New Zealand fin- < ished fifth in that event. 1 Paterson qualified equal ( ninth from the two stroke rounds which decided the 32 s players to contest the s match-play championship. I He said last evening that he was “rapt with just qualify- i ing. The course had a par of I 72 and there were 190 com- ; petitors. In the first round 1 75 players shot 76 or bet- < ter.” Paterson, with rounds 1 of 73 and 71, was well inside i the cut of 150. i In the first two rounds of 1 match-play he struck two 1 youthful Australians: his 1 first opponent, aged 16, was 1 overawed by the occasion j and beaten eight and seven; but Paterson had to come < from behind to beat the t sixth qualifier, Craig Mann, ( aged 19, at the seventeenth I hole. Mann folded under < pressure, losing the fifteenth < to a par and three-putting i

the seventeenth. In the quarter-finals, Paterson was 3-up with four to go against his South Australian rival, lost 15 and 16 to birdies, halved 17 in birdies, and lost the eighteenth by three putting. Paterson won at the first extra hole with a sound par. Against Ruangkit, Paterson admitted to having struggled throughout, although he was 1-up early on. The Thai, who won three successive holes, two of them with birdies, went 2-up and it required a marvellous effort by Paterson to square the game after 17 holes. Encouraged by a number of Canterbury golfing supporters, he holed a Im putt for a half at 18, but lost on the first extra hole by hooking his drive into bushes and missing a 3m par putt. Before the individual championship, Paterson had teamed with Colin Taylor (Hamilton) to finish fifth in the Australian foursomes championship and they were only two shots from the winners.