Cardiff giant Smith stages mighty finish to clinch Irish Open title

CRAIG SMITH, a 6 foot 7 inch tall, 23 year-old from Cardiff, became the third overseas winner of the AIB Irish Amateur Open Championship since the event was revived in 1995 by mounting a highly impressive rearguard action over the Montgomerie course at Carton House, Co Kildare.

Smith, a member of the Welsh team at the Home Internationals in Ballybunion last September, began the tournament on Friday with an undistinguished 77, improved to a 73 on Saturday before a course record equalling 68 yesterday morning, containing seven birdies, moved him to within a stroke of the halfway leader, Kevin Moore from the Isle of Man, with 18 holes to play.

He completed the tournament with a commendably steady 71 to close on one over par 289, just one ahead of County Sligo's Sean McTernan, who shot rounds of 72 and 70 yesterday. The Austrian Florian Praegant finished with identical scores to come home in third place on four over and he in turn was one better than Moore.

Smith, who plays off a handicap of plus 3, is an affable giant of a man who played Under 21 rugby for Wales before a knee injury caused him to switch his attention to golf and is only playing the game full time for four years.

He said: "I've had problems with my swing because of my height. Ideally, I should be using irons that are 2 1/2 inches longer than standard but when you do that, weight becomes a factor. So my clubs are just an inch longer than usual and I've also ground out some weight from the back.

"I'm a member of the Britain and& Ireland elite squad and so qualify for grants from the Welsh Sports Council and that has enabled me to play in Australia and Columbia in South America, where I won a tournament. This is my first event in Ireland."

Smith will be 24 on the weekend of the B & I Continent of Europe clash for the St Andrews Trophy in August and hopes this win will help earn him a place in the side and with it cause for a double celebration.

He agreed that his putting was the key to his success at Carton and especially singled out a fifteen footer for par at the 15th in yesterday's final round. "That was crucial and kept the momentum going," he said. "I was aware of being in the lead, I was getting regular updates on what the others were doing."

As it transpired, it was a putt Smith needed to ward off the challenge of Sean McTernan, a finalist in the 2002 South of Ireland Championship. In fact, the former Toledo University student had an eighteen footer on the final green to force a play-off but was off target.

It was a good day, too, for Karl Bornemann who scored 70 and 73 to finish on seven over. His 70 was one of only eleven under par throughout the four rounds and was a model of consistency for he had two birdies and a bogey on the outward journey and completed the back nine in eight pars and a third birdie at the 11th. Bornemann tied for 7th with the burly Ulsterman Andrew McCormick.

The Montgomerie course isn't everybody's cup of tea and is really only suitable for serious golfers.

The bunkers, designed as much as possible to look like the kind of traps one would more likely find on a links, are particularly severe and even if the greens didn't putt at more than 10.5 on the stimpmeter, they are heavily sloped and contoured so that very often getting down in two putts isn't at all easy. The rough, too, was just that.

However, all the publicity before the tournament began was about the quality of the field, 99 competitors of scratch or better and that kind of stuff.

A large number found it more than a little difficult to break 80 and Matt Clark, the Scot who led with a remarkable 68 on Friday, crashed to scores of 81, 87 and 75 over the next three rounds and came in last of the qualifiers on 311, 23 over par. Those who wondered aloud as to where these guys get such exalted handicaps certainly had a point.

Walker Cup stars Noel Fox, the defending champion from Portmarnock, and Welshman Nigel Edwards, didn't make it into the final two rounds even though the cut mark was 152, eight over par. They both missed by a single shot and were joined on the sidelines by Irish international Mark Campbell and recent West of Ireland winner Paul McDonald.

To their credit, neither complained about the difficulty of the golf course although they made their frustration at the slow pace of play very apparent to championship officials. It took over five hours to get the threeballs around the course in each of the four rounds.