Have you ever seen a golfer win a professional tournament by having to putt with the back his club on the final hole? Because, if you hadn’t seen it with your own eyes, you might not have believed the latest zany chapter on the PGA Tour of Australasia.
Oliver Bekker is a former top 100 player in the world only a few years ago, and the owner of perhaps the weirdest way to win a golf event for a long time.
Leading by one stroke playing the par-five last at Perth’s Mount Lawley Golf Club, the South African seemed like he was going to hold his nerve when younger knees would have been knocking. Down for two just below the green and with a fair bit of room to make the putting surface, he reached for his putter. The Texas Wedge might be good in the Lone Star state, but not in Australia’s wild west. A normal approach wedge was surely the sensible option, right?
His putt had too far to roll to get onto the green, snaked along a ridge protecting the pin in the back left and veered hard towards a greenside bunker. It stopped so tantalisingly on the lip of the bunker, Bekker had no option but to stand on the green rather than several feet below him in the sand, turn his putter around, and flick it down the hill with the back of his flat stick as a left-hander.
The line was good, the length not. It sped past the hole. Now that he had his club back facing the right way, Bekker drained a 10-footer for par, pumped his fist and thought, ‘what the hell just happened?’
“The most bizarre two minutes of golf I’ve ever seen,” Australian golfing legend Nick O’Hern said as Bekker (-7) won his second PGA Tour of Australasia event from Cameron John (-6) after a closing three-under 69.
Joked Bekker: “I lost my ability to play golf. I thought I was only one shot ahead and it’s only a par five, so I (wanted) to putt it. I was going to go a little bit further right and leave myself an easy two putt. I just hit it too soft, it caught the slope and took it left and somehow it didn’t go in the bunker.
“It was all happening let me tell you, there were some things happening I’ve never seen in my life.”
The finish was even more bizarre because of what happened in the previous hole.
All day during a manic final round, Bekker hadn’t really found a leaderboard. In fairness to him, he hasn’t needed to look at a weekend leaderboard for months … because he hasn’t been playing. In his last eight world rankings events, seven missed cuts. The other tournament he withdrew.
But the beauty of his sport is at the age of 40, where some rivals in the WA Open this week were less than half his age, you can still catch lightning in a bottle for one week and everything changes.
Bekker was standing on the 17th tee, and unbeknownst to him, he was up by one shot. The hole is a par-three brute, measuring 187 metres on the day, the second hardest on the course all week. By the time he arrived, there’d been one birdie on the hole all day. One.
He rifled his shot a tad further left than he wanted, and if it’s one metre shorter, one metre further left, one metre longer, none of it is really that good. But it lands on the top of a ridge right next to a greenside bunker, kisses gently off the moist surface, kicks to the right and then funnels down a hill till it stops a foot from the hole. For a second, it looked like it would be hole-in-one and a mic drop moment only Shohei Ohtani was seemingly capable of this weekend.
The South African could have kicked in the birdie putt it was that close, and the easy story would be to say he held his nerve down the last. He didn’t. In the end, he was both lucky and good.
“This has come so far out of left field,” Bekker said of his win. “I said to my wife, ‘I feel like I’m just missing and just missing and it’s close. I wouldn’t be surprised if I play well one week’.
“This was the week apparently.”
Marc Leishman (-5) holed a monster birdie putt on the last hole to post a final round 69, having spent a portion of the day tied for the lead after a fast start and a series of exquisite bump and runs on the sandbelt-like Mount Lawley.
He didn’t win, but job done for the LIV Golf star who flew half-way around the world to get match fit for the Australian summer of golf.
Edwards’ clutch finish sets scene for tense end to WA Open
Marc Leishman will need all his experience and guile to head into the Australian summer of golf in winning form after he yielded ground late on a fascinating third day of the WA Open.
One of the country’s best players of his generation, Leishman is making a rare appearance on the PGA Tour of Australasia, but was left to rue some late hiccups as he surrendered three shots in his final six holes to tumble down the leaderboard.
Leishman (-2), who will celebrate his 42nd birthday next week, will begin the final round at Mount Lawley Golf Club four behind pacesetter Jared Edwards on a crammed leaderboard after a three-over 75.
But he will still be within striking distance as he warms up for the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland and Australian Open at Royal Melbourne, which will herald Rory McIlroy’s return to Australia.
Leishman banked his first individual title on the LIV Golf circuit and has enjoyed one of the most consistent years of his career, even being the only Australian to make the cut at The Open Championship in Northern Ireland.
Yet winning closer to home is going to take a significant push on Sunday as he remains one of 21 players within five shots of the lead.
New Zealander Edwards (-6) will have golden opportunity to win his first PGA Tour of Australasia event after a birdie on the last steadied the ship after a mid-round slide.
He ended up shooting 73, for a one-shot cushion from Cameron John (72) and Haydn Barron (73).
“There are not many places we play during the season that are that tough,” John said.
“It’s shaping up to be very similar to what we hope and expect of Royal Melbourne later in the year. It’s a true test. Although the course is not super long, it’s really holding its own.”
WA OPEN TURNS INTO TRANS-TASMAN BATTLE
He used to be the frontman for a New Zealand cover band, but Mako Thompson is edging closer to putting his other career firmly behind him as he bolted to the lead at the halfway point of the WA Open.
The professional golfer, who only secured his PGA Tour of Australasia card at qualifying school earlier this year having juggled his sporting pursuit with earning money keeping punters entertained of a night, overcame tricky conditions to take top spot into the weekend at Mount Lawley Golf Club in Perth.
Thompson (-8) posted a second consecutive four-under 68 to lead fellow New Zealander and good friend Jared Edwards (-7) by a shot. Edwards shot a second round best 65 to rocket into contention.
“I think we’ve got a good group of Kiwis that are coming through the last five years and up and coming now,” Thompson said.
“It’s such an inspiration to play with them for many, many years and see how they’re winning on bigger tours and things like that.
“So, New Zealand golf’s in a really good spot at the moment.
“It’s still only halfway. I know there’s still lots of golf to go, so just same sort of plan as we’ve had the first two days and whatever comes my way will happen.”
Marc Leishman’s shadow looms large over the leaderboard as the LIV Golf star signed for an impressive three-under 69 in blustery afternoon winds which hampered scoring for the afternoon wave.
Leishman (-5) has made the long trip to Perth from his home in the United States to use the WA Open as a stepping stone for the summer of golf, including the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland and Australian Open at Royal Melbourne.
“That was as sandbelt as I’ve seen,” Leishman said.
“It was rock hard, it was difficult, but it was awesome.
“It was so much fun to have to work shots left to right, right to left and land them on a hill to get to a pin. I love that sort of golf. It really rewards good play and punishes bad play.
“I love the golf course. It’s short, but has definitely gone up as one of my favourites.”
Overnight leader Haydn Barron (-6) remains right in the mix despite labouring to a one-over 73 following his course record heroics in the opening round.
Seventeen-year-old amateur Spencer Harrison (E) had a much tougher day with a four-over 76 after his impressive 68 on Thursday, while Jeff Guan’s (+2) remarkable comeback continues to gather pace as he made another cut in his return from a life-changing injury which has left him with sight in only one eye.
Having finished top 10 in only his second event back at Kalgoorlie last week, the former Cameron Smith Scholarship holder and junior Presidents Cup member battled to a three-over 75 in his second round to make the weekend.
LEISHMAN’S PRAISE FOR TEENAGE AMATEUR
Marc Leishman lavished praise on a 17-year-old amateur who upstaged one of Australia’s best of his generation in the opening round of the WA Open on Thursday.
LIV Golf star Leishman, playing his first event in almost two months, showed little sign of rust as he put himself in a stalking position with a tidy two-under 70 at Mount Lawley Golf Club in Perth.
But his playing partner Spencer Harrison, less than half of Leishman’s age, stole the show with seven birdies on his final 10 holes for an impressive four-under 68, three shots shy of first round leader Haydn Barron (-7).
Leishman is trying to sharpen his game during the LIV off-season before a huge summer of golf, which will include Rory McIlroy’s return to Australia for the national championship at Royal Melbourne.
Having undertaken the arduous travel from his base at Virginia Beach, Leishman was quickly into stride as the headline act on the latest stop on the PGA Tour of Australasia.
“I felt really good over the ball,” Leishman said. “Irons were quite good. Felt like the ones I had with a lot of trouble around them and had to really engage, they were great. A few where there were easier pins.
“I kind of fell asleep a little bit, but when you’ve had six weeks off, that sort of happens. So, I think it’ll be better for the hit and hopefully I can have a low one (on Friday).”
He will have a much better idea of Harrison’s credentials, too, as the youngster bounced back after missing the cut at the WA PGA Championship in Kalgoorlie last week to catch everyone’s attention.
The group played with a healthy crowd following behind them in the fairways, and Harrison’s putter caught fire on the second nine to announce his arrival against the professionals.
“He hit it great,” Leishman said. “Got a bright future ahead of him.”
Said Harrison: “He (Leishman) is obviously one of the role models that you look up to as a kid and one of the best that’s ever played the game from Australia.
“So, being able to play with him and see how he manages himself around the course is, I think, really big for me and my learnings. As well as learning how to deal with crowds and pressure and that kind of stuff.”
Harrison was in a six-way share of second spot alongside Louis Dobbelaar, Tom Power Horan, Cameron John, Adam Bland and Mako Thompson.
It was a tough opening day for one of Australia’s rising female stars with WA local Kirsten Rudgeley, given an invitation to play against the men, facing an almost impossible task to make the cut after a nine-over 81.
