KEY POINTS:
Champion one afternoon and just a spectator the next. That was the fate of 19-year-old Wellington golfer James Betts, who won the national amateur strokeplay championship at Paraparaumu Beach on Saturday.
But the sports and exercise student from Massey University was still on a high even after being knocked out in the first round of the national matchplay championship yesterday.
And with good reason. He came from relative obscurity to become the first player from the Paraparaumu Beach Club to win the strokeplay title since the late John Durry in 1965 and he did it by holding his nerve against more experienced players in a dramatic three-way playoff.
After 72 holes he was level on 279, five under par, with Aucklander Ryan Fox and Jared Pender from Tauranga.
The issue was decided on the 445m par-five 18th, which Fox and Pender had both birdied to get into the playoff. But Fox sliced his drive out of bounds and dropped out of contention on the first extra hole and Pender put two teeshots out of bounds the second time around to leave Betts with an unopposed stroll to victory.
But yesterday morning, when both the men and women returned for the matchplay, Betts found Willie Moore from Christchurch in sparkling form and went down 4 and 3. Pender also succumbed to a birdie by Wellingtonian Adam Church on the fateful 18th to lose one down.
But Fox survived with some exciting golf. He was taken to the last hole by Rotorua's Mark Smith in the morning and in the afternoon he came from behind to beat Masterton player Michael Schofield, snatching a birdie from the rough to win one hole and bettering that on the next with an eagle from a similar predicament.
Fox will play his Middlemore clubmate, Ben Wallace, in the quarter-finals this morning. Wallace eliminated last year's runner-up, Nick Gillespie, 2 and 1. Last year's champion, Danny Lee, isn't playing but the 2006 winner, Wellingtonian Andrew Green, is through to the quarters.
The women's strokeplay champion, Dana Kim from Christchurch, had a relatively untroubled run to the quarters and the runner-up, Zoe Brake (Whakatane), is also through.
Looming as strong threats are the defending matchplay champion, Aucklander Larissa Eruera, and Rotorua's Penny Smith, who meet this morning in the quarters.
Smith, who won the strokeplay title in 2004, was nine under the card in her two victories yesterday while Eruera had a battle in the morning with Titirangi's Kristin Farrell before sinking a birdie putt to win on the last green.
Both men and women will complete the quarters and semis today over 18 holes before the 36-hole finals tomorrow.
