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Lonard
wins Australian Masters in playoff With the events of the previous
two PGA tour events and the wild weather that whipped Huntingdale on the first
two days, it was going to take something spectacular to finish the 2002 Tour season
off with a bang. The Mastercard Masters lived up to that challenge. The
finish was a thrilling as could be expected, a playoff between three of Australia’s
most talented golfers. In the end, the good form of Peter Lonard carried him from
a seemingly unwinnable position on the 12th tee to his second gold jacket. The
playoff which finally separated Lonard, Gavin Coles and Adam Scott began with
no hint of the result to come. Lonard hit his tee-shot on the first playoff hole
into a bunker on the left hand side while Coles and Scott split the middle of
the 18th fairway.
“I hit it in that bunker on Thursday and took a double-bogey
so I wasn’t very confident when I was heading down there,” he said Lonard
took a risk with the lip of the bunker, taking a seven-iron and put the ball in
the heart of the green. The pressure was now on Coles and Scott who both put their
approach shots short and right. Lonard two-putted, Coles got up and down but Scott’s
putter, which had troubled him all week, let him down and an Australasian Tour
victory would elude him for another year. Coles and Lonard then headed to
the 17th and with good tee-shots setting them up for birdie chances. This time
it was Lonard’s turn to leave it short and right and Coles turn to get down
in two putts. Lonard got up and down and they headed back to the 18th tee. This
time they both found trouble with Coles finding the trap and Lonard in the rough
close to the grandstands. Coles was forced to lay up while a line-of-sight ruling
helped Lonard get a chance at an approach shot. He put it with about seven metres
while Coles wasn’t able to do much better from a much closer range. Each
man took two putts and Lonard took the $225,000 first prizemoney. The final
words are perhaps best left to Coles who seemed happy enough with his efforts. “Wow
that was great fun,” he said. “It was a great last day of work for the
year.”
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