Lyle damps Ballesteros to reach his fifth final

Press, 11 October 1988, Page 22

Lyle damps Ballesteros to reach his fifth final

b’ZPA-Reuter Wentworth, England Sandy Lyle swept into his fifth World Match Play golf championship final on Sunday seemingly set to become champion at last. The United States Masters titleholder demolished the redoubtable Seve Ballesteros, of Spain, 7 and 6 to take his place in the final for the fifth time in nine years. He has never won.

“In five attempts, one ought to go right, but it’s going to be a tough final,” Lyle said. Lyle’s victory ensured a second successive all British final in an event which, until last year, no Briton had ever won. The Scot will meet Nick Faldo who defeated the defending champion, lan Woosnam, by one hole in the other 36-hole semifinal. The winner will receive £75,000 ($204,750). Lyle was in imperious form after coming to Wentworth last week with doubts that his swing would stand up to the rigours of the event. But a five minute lesson with the English professional, John Jacobs, corrected a

fault in the plane of his swing, and since then he has been a player reborn.

The winner of three events on the United States tour this year, Lyle has languished in the doldrums since he added the British Masters title early in June to his United States Masters triumph. The killer blow against the British Open champion, Ballesteros, came at the sixth hole of the afternoon. Lyle had eagled the final hole before lunch and led by two holes after 18. Then he won the first and third after the break to go four up. At the 344 yard sixth, Lyle hit his trusty one iron off the tee, leaving a wedge shot 86 yards to the pin. The ball bounced five feet right of the hole, spun left, rolled down the hill and into the cup for an eagle two.

Ballesteros, four times champion, must have known there was no way back though he felt the turning point came at the next hole when he had a chance to launch a comeback.

But he missed the green with his approach, chipped poorly and missed an eight foot putt

after Lyle had also bogeyed the hole.

“Nothing went right for me, but he played great golf, especially in the morning,” Ballesteros said. “There’s no question the way he played today he would beat anybody.” Lyle, who went round in eight-under-par 64 in the morning, holed monster putts of 36 and 25 feet after winning the first hole of the day.

Ballesteros took the next two, Lyle squared at the fourth and when the Scot won the eighth he was in front to stay. A 10foot eagle putt at the 502yard eighteenth took him into lunch two ahead.

Lyle won three of the first six afternoon holes, capped by his eagle at the sixth and yet another birdie, his eleventh of the day, at the twelfth sewed up his triumph.

In the other match, Faldo found himself three down with 10 holes left but played his usual brand of flawless golf over the back nine to seize victory. “When I three-putted to go three down, I was just wondering when he was going to put me away,” Faldo said. But Woosnam missed a

five-foot putt at the ninth, lost the eleventh to a birdie and the twelfth to another Faldo birdie, this time from 20 feet. The match was level and Faldo went in front for the first time all day by winning the fourteenth when Woosnam required three putts from 60 feet.

Woosnam drew level at the sixteenth with a splendid wedge shot to three feet for a birdie, but Faldo won the seventeenth with two fine shots to the heart of the green when Woosnam was short in two. At the last, Woosnam drove too far right and a second driver from the rough finished well short of the green. Once more, Faldo was on in two, 50 feet from the hole and the Welshman conceded after chipping on in three but missing from 45 feet. Asked about Lyle’s sparkling play, Faldo said: “With Sandy, you hope it can’t happen two days on the trot. Hopefully, he’s used it all up.” Faldo, runner-up for the United States Open title this year, has been in the final once before, in 1983 when he lost to Greg Norman of Australia.