The Match

Mid-morning on a warm February day "The Match" took place on The Legends course at Moonah Links. Sarah Herd was trying to get 2009 off to a winning start whilst also improving her win-loss ratio against her opponent, Brendan Bartling. Sarah was fired up for the match due to Brendan's (serious) suggestion that he should give her some shots to make it interesting!

The game got off to an exciting start on the par 5 first hole when Sarah having misjudged her second shot was left with a 5 iron into the green. Knowing that Brendan just had a little pitch left for his third shot Sarah was hoping to get it close. When the ball start off on line she was hoping it was good but as the shot was completely blind she had no idea until Brendan said that it had gone in the hole for an eagle.. one up.

Not for long though as a par was good enough for Brendan to square the match at the next hole. Some bad putting from both players on the par 3 third so a halved hole. The lead continued to shift throughout the front nine resulting in the score line being all square at the turn.

Down to business on the back nine then! The short par 4 11th saw Brendan spray his 3 wood (for accuracy!) into the trouble on the right whilst Sarah finished up just short of the green. Finding his ball and managing to play it out to the front edge Brendan was in good position to make par. Meanwhile Sarah pitched to about 5 foot and sunk her birdie putt to win the hole. The next crucial hole was the 15th when Sarah conceeded the hole having found a tough lie in the greenside bunker and not managing to shift the ball.

On to the 16th tee we went where we were confronted with one of the biggest greens in golf. With a huge ridge running across the green it became obvious that getting the ball close to the hole would be tricky. Brendan hit what looked like a good shot that just didn't quite manage to carry the ridge so fell down to the bottom of it. Learning from this Sarah hit a bit too much club and ran through the back of the green. Faced with a reasonably straight forward chip Sarah played it to 6 foot left of the hole. Brendan then had to try and put up this ridge which would be more suited to a skate park than a golf course! His first attempt was poor and the ball came back to his feet. His seond attempt was a mishit which had the same result as his first. Third time lucky he managed to get the ball up the hill but still short of the hole and still not losing his turn he then missed that to clock up a 5 putt 6! Sarah proceeded to hole her par putt to square the match.

All square on the 18th tee. With both drives in the midle of the fairway it was Sarah to hit her approach first. Hitting it right on line the shot looked good all the way and both players believed that it had come to rest fairly close to the hole. Brendan, cracking under the pressure, blocked his approach finishing up off in the valley to the right edge of the green. Sarah's ball had actually run towards the back edge of the green so she was still faced with a long putt. With Brendan slightly thining his chip Sarah was left knowing that a 2 putt would definitely extend the match and possibly even win it. As a result she lagged the putt down to 3 foot and when Brendan missed his par putt Sarah holed out to win the match!!

At the end of the day the best player won!

(Sarah is willing to conceed that following this match another match was played at Patterson River Country Club in which Brendan managed to sort out his putting and win by 4&2.)

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