Australia's Andrew McKenzie wins NZ Strokeplay title
IN: News | New Zealand Mens Amateur | New Zealand Amateur Championship (2004) | Wrap | 22 Apr 2004
Australian Andrew McKenzie best survived a golfing test that required plenty of aptitude and attitude to claim the New Zealand 72-hole stroke-play title at the Taupo Golf Club's Centennial course today.
He was in a four-way play-off to find the national champion and after four extra holes he had seen off his three rivals and ensured the St Andrews Salver stayed in Australian hands.
Play-offs have been needed on five previous occasions to determine the winner since the inaugural 72-hole championship in 1983, but history was made today with the first multiple sudden death which, in true Anzac spirit, involved two golfers from Australia and two from New Zealand.
Only two players had been involved in the other play-offs.
McKenzie, fellow countryman, Jarrod Lyle, and the Wellington pair from the Manor Park club, Riki Kauika and Dimitrios Amos, were the four who returned six-under scores of 282 to force the sudden-death shoot-out at the par-3 210m 18th, a hole playing not so difficult because of a tailwind.
Kauika bowed out the first time after three-putting - a sin he committed at the easy par-4 17th a little earlier. A par there would have won him the title, but he took a bogey after driving over the green.
New Zealand's hopes of victory went at the 20th, when Amos also three-outted, missing his 2m return putt.
The third playing of the hole could not separate the Australians who both parred it for the third time, but on the fourth attempt it was Lyle who faltered. He had found a similar spot on the green each time with his tee shot and had gone close with the birdie putts. But this time he was too bold with the first putt and lipped out with a return putt of about one metre.
McKenzie, a 21-year old from the Federal Club in Canberra, said he never felt any nerves through the shoot out even though it was the most significant play-off he had contested.
He took a one-stroke lead into the final round over Lyle and Kauika, and after carding a three-over 75 and "making a lot of silly mistakes" he felt himself fortunate to even be in the sudden death.
And during the final shoot out he could only watch and wonder how Lyle did not win it. "He (Lyle) hit four perfect shots to the green but he left himself tough putts and I didn't expect them to go in."
McKenzie twice missed the green and chipped almost dead. In the end it came down to who didn't three putt and that player was McKenzie, who now faces countryman Gavin Flint in the first round of match play tomorrow morning.
Flint and American Nick Carter, whose father was a Kiwi, were the two players from six who contested a sudden death play off for the last two positions in the 32-strong field for the amateur championship over the next three days.
Other key first-round match-ups have last year's runner-up Hamish Robertson (Taihape) playing New Zealand representative Doug Holloway (Hawkes Bay) and Australian Michael Sim, a semi-finalist last year, against big hitting Hamilton amateur Jim Cusdin.
Source - NZGA
