2009 Australian Amateur Champion
Scott Arnold of New South Wales captured the Australian Amateur Championship Wednesday on the final day of action at Royal Queensland Golf Club, outlasting Daniel Beckmann 3&1 in the 36-hole final match.
Arnold and Beckmann entered the tournament 1-2 in the
2009 amateurgolf.com World Player-of-the-Year points race, and their excellent play continued with twin runs to the final match.
For Arnold, 2009 has been a breakout year that started with a win at the Lake Macquarie Amateur, followed by a semifinal finish at the New South Wales Am, a 3rd place finish at the Tasmanian Open, a runner-up at the Riversdale Cup and a 3rd place finish in the Australian Men's Stroke Play. And now he has won Australia's biggest championship.
“It’s a really good feeling,” Arnold said. “I got to 3-up with 6 holes to play and I said to myself, you can take this out.”
In a tight battle for the championship, Arnold and Beckmann fought their way through 36 holes with neither willing to give an inch.
The pair traded birdies in their opening nine holes but Arnold could only get one hole up before Beckmann reigned in his lead with a birdie on the 9th to make the match square.
The see-saw continued on the back nine and the duo finished their opening holes all square.
It was the same scenario on the second round of 18 holes before Arnold prevailed 3&1 on the 35th hole.
For Beckmann, the runner-up finish was his 5th top-5 finish of the year.
“Dan has come a long way,” Arnold said. “With the way he’s playing at the moment and the way he played in the Stroke Play, he’s going to win a lot more tournaments.”
From here, Arnold prepares to represent Australia in the Southern Cross Cup in New Zealand before the New Zealand Amateur Championship and then making his way to England for the British Amateur and other tournaments.
“No one can take away this victory from me and I’m sure that down the track, when I’ve got a Tour card and in ten years’ time, I’ll look back and be proud I was the amateur champion,” Arnold said.
Bryden Macpherson, who earned the #1 seed in the match play bracket by winning the Australian Men's Stroke Play Championship, lost in the first round to Daniel Nisbet. The Men's Stroke Play runner-up Jin Jeong of Korea also lost in the first round.
ABOUT THE Australian Men's Amateur
The Australian Men's and Women's
Amateur
Championships are Australia's oldest
Amateur
Golf Championships, with both having
been
played since 1894. Long held as a match play event,
in 2021 the format changed to 72 holes
of stroke play.
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