Fox down on his luck with putting problems

Ireland's Noel Fox continued to suffer from the putting problems which had troubled him over the three days when he closed with a 73 for a level par four round total of 284 in the Lytham Trophy yesterday.

He trailed by a massive margin of 19 strokes behind runaway winner James Heath, of Surrey, who shredded the tournament record.

Fox, the 30-year-old Walker Cup player from Portmarnock, was so concerned over his ineptitude on the greens that he intends to spend the next few days trying to sort himself out before this weekend's Irish Amateur Championship on the new Colin Montgomerie course at Carton House near Dublin.

He lamented: "I played as well as I have done all season but I could not buy a putt. I'd donate any organ from my body to science if someone could show me where I'm going wrong.

"The pin positions were much tighter in the last two rounds but my average of 35 putts was unacceptable."

Fox signed for a 71 in the third round and followed up with 73 after running up a couple of double bogeys.

Heath can expected to be elevated to the England Elite squad after his tremendous performance in compiling an 18-under-par total which sliced seven strokes of the previous record set by Richard McEvoy in 2001 and even beat Tom Lehman's Open Championship best at Lytham by five.

Ross Fisher, from Wentworth quickly lost his three shot advantage over Heath and hung on for second place eight strokes off the pace.