Montrose Matchplay Round 1 (Last 32)

The 32 successful souls who negotiated the 36 hole qualifying for the Montrose 5 Day Open made their first forays into the matchplay part of the competition today, including myself who, after a couple of withdrawals, ended up qualifying in 28th position.

I was up against the 5th best qualifier, one of 5 youth players over from Australia on a sponsored tour, all five of whom finished in the top 32. My opponent knocked together rounds of 74 and 70 in the qualifying so I knew what I was up against before we started.

A horrible thin / shank / push / I don’t know what with an 8 iron on the first was not the best nerve settler, but I got back level on the 2nd. I then went one down again on the third, but once again got it back on the par 5 6th, narrowly missing my eagle putt but settling for a birdie to square the game up.

The next 4 were halved, although I had good birdie chances at 8 and 10 that I couldn’t convert, but eventually on 11 I got my nose in front when my opponent had a visit to the gorse. 12 and 13 saw two halves; a good escape for par, followed by another short birdie miss, and on 14 I seized the moment, when another visit to the gorse for my opponent allowed me to play for a safe bogey and move 2 up.

15 is a long par 5, and with the wind turning, was totally out of range in 2 for me today. So I played a drive left to avoid the fairway bunkers, and a 6 iron lay up to leave me 103 yards to the hole. My opponent hit 2 big shots to lie about 5 yards from the green, so instead of playing for the heart of the green I decided I needed to take the flag on, despite it being only a few yards over a bunker. Fortunately, I caught it sweet as a nut and it landed, stopped dead, and left me with a 4 footer for birdie. My opponent got up and down for birdie as expected, and I held my nerve to sink my putt and stay 2 up with 3 to play.

The 16th saw my opponent hit a pull into the thick rough left, and when his recovery went towards the gorse, that was the end of the game and I had made it through to the last 16 with a 3&2 victory.

I am absolutely over the moon with this win, I’m as pleased as I have been with any round this year. It also means that, barring the Strathmore Open where I was joint 2nd, this is the first of my 7 Majors this year where I have hit the target I set myself at the start of the year. Today I had a game plan, stuck to it, and whilst I didn’t play spectacularly (I was 3 over par), I played good matchplay golf, hitting the right shots at the right time.

So I have a last 16 match tomorrow morning and who knows, maybe even a quarter final match in the afternoon, but let’s just take it one round at a time for the moment.