A GREAT FINAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 452, 6 September 1928, Page 10

A GREAT FINAL

ROTORUA OPEN TITLE LUSK WINS AGAIN A more excellent final than that in which TI. B. Lusk ■won the Rotorua championship from Morice on the 36th green in the open tournament last week has yet to be played in New Zealand.

There was a large gallery, and it was treated to great golf, more especially as throughout the day there was a piping wind up and down the course. Lusk is-well enough known in Auckland to need no further introduction. Morice is a younger man who at one time was .regarded with favour in the Old Country, but he is a somewhat nervy player, and he does not reproduce his brilliant medal results in match play. He was in the professional ranking for some time, but has been reinstated. All his shots are good, and it is a pleasure to watch him play. For a small man his wooden shots are very long;. I did not see the morning round, which, however, was described with enthusiasm by the spectators. Both were round in about 73, and they were square at lunch time. In spite of the wind, the play in the afternoon was so excellent that I have no option but to mention the few strokes that got either player into trouble. Each was one under fours after playing the third, Morice having the honour and putting his tee shot into a bunker well over 200 yards from the tee. To the crowd’s amazement Lusk followed him in and the balls were within a foot of each other. Morice played first and took two to get out and finally had a chance for a five, Lusk having reached the edge of the green with his second ajid being woefully short with his next. This fourth hole must have unpleasant recollections for Morice, for in the morning he had lost it with a stymie, and in the afternoon Lusk sunk his putt for a four. HIS NIBLICK AND HIS MAKER Three brilliant strokes and a long putt gave Morice a four at the next, a birdie, practically an eagle under the conditions. All square they went to the sixth, a green in the middle of a desert of bunkers. Morice found the green, and Lusk a bunker, where his performance reminded one of the adage of a man, a bunker, a niblick, and his Maker. Two shots in one bunker, followed by two more in a bunker across the green, saw still not on the green, and he gave up. to get the next hole when Morice put j his second under a fence, and made a very haphazard attempt to get it out. The pair got the two short holes,

the 12th and 13th, still square, and Lusk played a perfect tee shot, only to miss a four-foot putt for a two and a win. At the next Morice had a try at a 10-footer also for a win without success, but Lusk took a four and was one down. Two perfect four’s and three remarkable hdes followed. Morice cut fnto the trees at the 16th, and Lusk elected to take an iron. He nearly got what he deserved, for his tee shot failed to catch the fairway, and it was only a long putt in the finish that gave him a win in bogey 4, to square the match. The 17th, which is the 35th of the match, saw Lusk some 15 feet from the pin, and Morice just on, 50 feet away. A brilliant down-liill putt put Morice what seemed to be dead. Lusk was short, putted again, missed a two-footer on

a perfect green, and laid a stymie with his ball on the lip. It was too risky to make a real attempt at, and the pair went to the fast hole with honours even. Morice *pul!ed his tee shot and had to play a. pulled second with a brassy round the trees. He half topped it and the shot cost him ilio match, Lusk sinking a 10-foot putt for* a four to win one up. It was an exciting and delightful finish to a splendid tourney. Rotorua favoured its visitors with a run of almost perfect weather —almost good enough to wipe out the bad dreams engendered by the course bunkers, which are strewn round with great prodigality, and in which niblicks flashed by dozens during the tournament. No putters in these bunkers. They are not built that way.

Archie Compston. the English professional. won the ICastern Open at Wolf Hollow, United States, by leading a large field with 287. It was hard work for the visiting professional from overseas, and he was laid lip after the match because of the heat.