Lee, Gillespie in all NZ Matchplay Final
IN: News | New Zealand Mens Amateur | New Zealand Amateur Championship (2007) | by Bruce Young : iseekgolf.com | 21 Apr 2007
Danny Lee, the South Island stroke-play champion, and Nick Gillespie, the North Island stroke-play titleholder, will meet over 36 holes at the Hamilton Golf Club’s St Andrews course tomorrow to see who will become the New Zealand match-play champion.
Lee, 16, and Gillespie, 19, both won their semi-finals at the last hole this afternoon, Lee downing the new national stroke-play champion, James Gill, of the home club, and Gillespie ousting Australian match-play and foursomes champion Rohan Blizard.
Not since 2001 have two New Zealanders contested their country’s match-play final with Australians having won four of the last five championships.
Lee, the national under champion, plays out of the Springfield club in Rotorua and Gillespie has been with the Hastings club for the last eight months after spending the previous six years with the Wanganui Golf Club.
Lee had seven birdies and was four-under par in beating Gill, who also bowed out in the semi-finals last year.
Lee went 1 up after his second birdie at the fifth and never lost the lead. He went up 2 up with another birdie at the seventh and, although Gill eagled the par-5 10th, Lee birdied the 12th to be back to 2 up. Gill birdied the 15th but Lee matched pars at 16 and 17 then closed the match out with a 3.5m birdie putt at the par-3 18th.
Gillespie, son of the New Zealand test and one-day cricketer, Stu Gillespie, was not sure how he would fare after some bad scores in the 36-hole foursomes last Sunday.
But he took advantage of some wayward shots by Blizard on the back nine. An eagle at the 10th and a birdie at the 13th had Blizard 2 up, but he lost the next three holes with bogeys, squared the game when Gillespie bogeyed the 17th, but lost the last hole when he found a greenside trap and failed to hole a long par putt.
In the morning quarter-finals, Gill, after being 3 up after 14, had three consecutive bogeys and lost two of those holes to be 1 up playing the last against New South Welshman Brent Watson. But Gill played a precision iron into the par-3 18th hole and safely two-putted to protect his advantage.
Lee lost the first hole to Jared Pender (Tauranga), runner-up in both the North Island and South Island stroke-play championships this year, but he took the lead when it mattered most âÄ” at the last hole.
An out-of-sorts Lee had five bogeys in the first 13 holes and was 2 down after 15, but he made a spectacular rally, chipping in for a birdie at 16 and slotting a breaking 7m birdie putt at 17 to square the match.
The par-3 finishing hole was an anti-climax, Lee winning it with a bogey after Pender chipped too strongly from the side bank and three-putted from 6m.
Blizard had four birdies and was three-under par in beating fellow New South Welshman, Grant Scott, winner of the New Zealand foursomes, at the 17th and Gillespie was also three-under in ousting Auckland’s Leighton James at the same hole.
James had five birdies in the first 10 holes to be four-under and 2 up, but the willowy Gillespie won four successive holes from the 10th, two with birdies and two with pars, to establish a two-hole lead which he maintained.
Source – NZGA
Photo – Photosport
