KEY POINTS:
Oh the agony. This space was reserved for a David Smail tribute, as the Kiwi golfer held a four-shot lead in the closing stages of the Australian Open.
Double bogeys on the 15th and 16th holes, after a sand save on the previous hole, saw him crash and miss the play-off at Royal Sydney.
But let's pay tribute a crack anyway.
Smail fought well. He needed to post only the fifth birdie of the day on the last, and just missed with a long chip.
Golf is a cruel game and some of the greatest sporting collapses have come on the fairways.
"How do you recover from an hour like that ... he's just blown the Australian Open. He'll be churning," the commentators reckoned. From what most of us know of Smail, he'll recover just fine. Smail is a wonderful professional, and as modest a bloke as you will find in sport. He seems to take the ups and downs with humility.
He'll be hurting, for sure. But life goes on and Smail will pop up again with a title-chasing performance.
You can interview him after successful and not-so-successful rounds, and you'd barely know the difference.
It would also be safe to say that he has never caused a tournament organiser, fellow competitor or spectator a moment of bother.
Had he won yesterday, it would have capped an encouraging year for New Zealand golf, led by Australian order of merit leader Mark Brown and the world's number one amateur Danny Lee.