Buckle makes remarkable debut in Australia
GolfWeb Correspondent
BRISBANE, Australia -- A week after playing for Australia in the Eisenhower Cup, Andrew Buckle made a spectacular pro debut by winning the Queensland Open on Sunday at Ipswich Golf Club.
The 20-year-old led by two shots as he reached the 72nd hole, but seemed destined for disaster when his approach to the final green flew toward a tree and dead ground. Double bogey would have been a good result.
As his ball sailed over the flag and the crowd groaned, a marshal instinctively raised his "Quiet Please" sign. Miraculously, the ball deflected off the marshal's sign and shot back onto the green, coming to rest 5 metres from the hole.
Buckle's two-putt par gave him victory over fellow Queenslander Ryan Haller and Craig Warren and Paul Sheehan of New South Wales. A third Queenslander, Craig Jones, was fifth after equalling the course record of 66 in the final round.
Had fate in the form of the sign not intervened, Buckle would have faced a downhill shot out of big trees from a lie baked rock-hard by the drought that is gripping much of Australia.
"I had a really bad lie in the fairway for my approach shot from about 100 metres," he said. "The ball was sitting right down, and I tried to hit an easy wedge to the center of the green. I hit it way too far and got a lucky break. I did not know what had happened until someone told me.
"I am not related to the marshal but I am grateful to him. It is really a good start to my pro career. I did not play as well as I could in the Eisenhower Trophy last week and it was nice to come back after that."
The Australians finished third behind the United States in the Eisenhower Trophy. Fellow team members Adam Groom and Marcus Fraser also announced their intention to turn pro when they came back from Malaysia last week.
Big things are being predicted for Buckle, who is already being hailed as at least the equal of Adam Scott, another Queenslander.
As well as winning the Queensland Open, a title that reads like a Who's Who of Australian golf, Buckle captured the Queensland Amateur Championship in January and the national amateur title last year. Previous Queensland Open champions include major winners Kel Nagle, Greg Norman, David Graham and Ian Baker-Finch. Other winners include Bruce Devlin, Graham Marsh and Brett Ogle.
Buckle's drive on the par-4 10th hole in the second round when the temperature reached 105 degrees was an indication of how dry conditions were at Ipswich. Admittedly, the hole which measured 358 metres (379 yards) is downhill, but his tee shot finished pin high.
The win by a local player was the second reason for celebration in Queensland this week.
On Monday, 88-year-old Norman von Nida, who won the title a record seven times between 1935 and 1961, was struck by a car while crossing a road near his home at Scarborough, north of Brisbane. Von Nida, who is blind, was at first given little chance of survival, but his friend and veteran Royal
Queensland Golf Club pro Charlie Earp brought good news to Ispwich.
"He was looking forward to coming to the tournament," Earp said. "He never misses it. But he is fine. He expects to be out of the hospital mid-week. He has 26 stitches in his head and a steel pin inserted in his arm, which was broken in two places, but he is as good as gold.
"He is like a tough old Queensland cane toad," Earp continued, referring to a noxious pest that has defied all attempts at eradication. "You can hit them over the back fence with a 7-iron but you can't hurt them."
Von Nida, patron of the Australian Golf Writers Association, sent a message that he would attend the AGWA annual dinner at Victoria Golf Club during the Australia Open in Melbourne later this month. The man who borrowed $50 to bet against -- and beat -- Gene Sarazen in an exhibition match in Brisbane in 1936 added that he was so bored in the hospital that he had been studying the form guide for the Melbourne Cup horse race, which will be run on Tuesday.
