Won Joon Lee kept the New Zealand 72-hole stroke-play title in Australian hands for a fourth successive year when he romped to a six-shot victory at the Coringa Country Club course in Christchurch yesterday.
Lee led from day one after an opening round of five-under 68 and the initiative was never wrested from the power-hitting New South Welshman who made a habit of driving some of the par-4 holes.
He started yesterday's final round five shots ahead of Hamilton's James Gill at 12-under. At the turn he was 14-under and had extended his lead to six shots over Western Australian Steve Dartnall.
The Concord club golfer finished with a one-under 71, his fourth consecutive sub-par round, and at 14-under for the tournament he had six shots to spare over his nearest challenger, Aucklander Travis O'Connell (The Grange), who came out of the pack with a course record of seven-under 66 for an eight-under total of 284.
Three shots in a share of third were New Zealand teammates and Hamilton clubmates Gill and Mark Purser on five-under with Dartnall at four-under.
Canterbury's Tyrone Nelson (Kaiapoi) was sixth on two-under and the only other players to finish in red figures were defending New Zealand match-play champion Mitchell Brown, from New South Wales, and New Zealand Eisenhower representative Josh Geary (Mt Maunganui), who had three straight sub-par rounds after a 79 in the opening round.
The cut for the match play championship which starts today with two rounds was at seven-over 299, with three players in a sudden-death play-off for the final two places in the 32.
Leighton James (The Grange) and New South Welshman Scott Arnold qualified at the first hole with a birdie and a par respectively, Scott Wightman (Muriwai) being the player to miss out.
Lee started his final round with a birdie and although he dropped a shot at the second with a three-putt, he birdied the third, sixth and seventh holes, and bogeyed the eighth to turn in two-under.
"I tried to keep my tee shots in play and to minimise the bad shots. I tried to play attacking golf without being stupid," Lee said.
O'Connell claimed the course record set by Gill and Lee the previous day with a fine display of putting. He felt he struck the ball better in rounds two and three, but the putter was not such a good ally then.
Key first-round matches today have Dartnall against New Zealand representative Richard Wright (Matamata) and titleholder Brown against Wellington No 1 Brenden Stuart.
Golf: Australian Lee romps to six-shot stroke-play victory
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