AAMI Women's Australian Open set for Monday finish

BY iseekgolf.com | ALPG Tour | 2004 Women's Australian Open | Final Round | 07 Mar 2004

The result of the 2004 AAMI Women’s Australian Open is on a knife edge as the tournament heads into a Monday finish due to incessant heavy rain since Saturday morning in Sydney.

England’s Laura Davies has a three shot lead on four under par with six holes to play in the final round as she aims for her first Australian Women’s Open title. But local favourite Rachel Teske is confident she can still win this title for the first time.

Torrential rain on Saturday from 10am through to the close of play sent scores soaring in the third round with Davies, who, at eight under par had a four shot lead at the halfway mark, squelching in with a 77.

Teske showed resilience on Saturday with a 71 in the treacherous conditions and closed Davies’ lead to just three heading into Sunday’s final round.

But heavy overnight rain continued through the morning and raised the water table, flooding many parts of Australia’s Harbour Town, Concord Golf Club included.

And with all but eight groups out on the course on Sunday morning, play was suspended at 10:35am when many of the greens flooded and several bunkers doubled up as ponds.

Despite valiant attempts to make the course playable, Mother Nature was not reading from the same script and the rain continued to pour. But a break in the downpour allowed the course to drain sufficiently and play resumed at 3pm, with the leaders teeing off at 4:15pm local time.

But it was not enough to see all 18 holes and the remaining players left out on the course will have to return from 7:20am to decide the title.

With a two shot lead in Davies’ favour, Teske made the first mistake, dropping a shot at the opening hole, but Davies dropped a shot at the fourth.

And when the Australian made the first birdie of the day in the final group with a 12 foot putt at the eighth, she narrowed the gap to just a shot.

However, Davies thrilled her supporters with a dramatic birdie at the ninth to move two clear and both players swapped birdies at the par five tenth to seemingly make it a two horse race.

But Teske failed to get up and down out of the right hand bunker on the 11th and dropped three shots back and Davies is back in the driver’s seat and looking to add the Australian Open title to the British, US, Thailand, Danish, Italian, Belgian, Swiss, Scottish, Welsh, Spanish and Irish National Opens and make it win number 66 and also keep her run of at least one win in every year of her 19-year-career career.

Source – LET (Martin Park)