Golf/West of Ireland Championship: The Standard Life West of Ireland Amateur Open Championship final was a scramble, not in the golfing vernacular but in the nature of the contest.
The golf was often scrappy, but, given the see-saw nature of proceedings and its longevity, it kept the 500-strong gallery enthralled until Woodbrook's Paul McDonald's two-putt par on the fourth tie hole proved decisive.
Matchplay renders the card of the course almost incidental, so the fact both players were probably a generous four over par for 18 holes is largely immaterial, other than to illustrate the tension of the occasion. Conditions were demanding, as the breeze that swept across the Rosses Point links was strong enough to make club selection difficult.
On several occasions McDonald and his opponent, Hermitage's Greg Bowden, came up short or saw approach shots fail to check and scamper over the back of greens.
In the end, the contest was decided by a duel with eight-irons on the par three fourth hole.
Bowden tried to cut his towards a pin five paces in from the right but saw his shot slide off the green, leaving him an almost impossible up and down.
McDonald, a 22-year-old UCD Landscape Horticulture student, found the putting surface, 35 feet from the pin. His second putt from four feet guaranteed his first championship victory.
His thoughts while standing over the short putt recalled a Bob Rotella book, Putting Out of Your Mind, which includes an anecdote about a basketball player who had a free-throw shooting average of 70 per cent.
In a collegiate final, his average fell to 30 per cent for that game, but when a chance came from the free-throw line, he grabbed the ball reasoning that his average meant he was due to succeed.
McDonald pointed out: "I knew I had been putting pretty well and that I was due one, so I was positive over the putt."
He might have enjoyed a far less fraught afternoon. He was one up after six holes: Bowden's birdie on the second was followed by a dropped shot at the next, and McDonald grabbed an eagle on the par five fifth to edge in front.
The 21-year-old Bowden took the seventh with a par, but bogeys on the eighth, ninth and 11th, saw him slide to three down and in serious trouble.
But the momentum switched almost immediately as it was McDonald's turn to experience the bogey blues, a run that took in the 12th, 13th and 14th holes.
The contest was now all square, but Bowden immediately handed back the initiative when he conceded the next hole having played six shots.
The Hermitage golfer, though, demonstrated his mettle on the 17th by holing a brilliant 12-footer and then watched his opponent miss a devilishly difficult, four-foot, downhill putt - he had to give away the hole - for par.
The issue was almost decided on the 18th when McDonald's exquisite chip hit the hole.
Over the extra holes, chances, albeit difficult ones, presented themselves for both players before Bowden's bit of misfortune at the fourth; but he had shown himself to be an excellent competitor.
"That was a bit stressful to say the least," McDonald admitted. "I wasn't nervous despite losing holes (over that stretch). I knew that I had played strongly over the closing holes in previous rounds."
That included his semi-final, when he showed excellent mental qualities, quite apart from his golf, to outlast Sweden's Oskar Henningsson for a one-hole victory.
Bowden, too, finished with a flourish in the morning, holing an 18-foot birdie putt on the home green against Castletroy's Stephen Moloney.
McDonald was unsure last night whether he would have to turn up for work this morning - he's working with the greenkeeping staff in Elm Park Golf Club, where he is on a three-month placement before he heads for Stanford University in California in June for a further two months' work experience.
Given his exploits and the obvious mental and physical fatigue, he has earned a long lie in this morning.
SEMI-FINALS
P McDonald (UCD/Woodbrook) bt O Henningsson (Sweden) 1 hole.
G Bowden (Hermitage) bt S Moloney (Castletroy) 1 hole.
FINAL
McDonald bt Bowden at 22nd.
