Dunbar confirms he knows how to close the deal

GOLF/ IRISH AMATEUR OPEN:CLASS HAS a way of finding its way to the top on a tough links where the wind can be an ally as much as a foe. Yesterday, over the seaside terrain of Royal Dublin on the North Bull Island, Alan Dunbar, a 20-year-old Ulsterman who has matured into a proven winner, captured the AIB Irish Amateur Open Championship with a methodical final round of 72 for 292, four over.

That left left him a shot clear of Scotland’s Kris Nicol.

For Dunbar, a member of the Rathmore club in Portrush, which has already turned out Graeme McDowell on its recent production line of raw talent, the victory simply confirmed his capacity to deliver the goods in the championships that really matter.

It comes on the back of his success in the St Andrews Links over the Old Course last season.

On a day when the wind abated from the onslaught the players had to contend with on Friday and Saturday, Dunbar shot rounds of 71 and 72 yesterday to make up the ground on 36-hole leader Luke Lennox.

The Moyola Park man still led by two going into the final round, only to falter to a closing 79 which dropped him back into a share of fourth by the day’s end.

In effect, the final round quickly became a duel between Dunbar, playing in the final threeball, and Nicol, a 25-year-old in-form Scot who also finished second (to Paul Cutler) in last week’s Lytham Trophy in England.

There was to be no denying Dunbar, however, who shot a solid level par round, featuring two birdies and two bogeys.

Indeed, it was to Dunbar’s credit that he played such a tidy final round. He’d featured two double-bogeys on his card in the first round and started with a triple bogey on the first hole in Saturday’s second round.

“I knew if I could cut out the major disasters, I’d be right there,” he said. “I just kept at my game, kept trying to make pars. I sort of knew if I could beat the two boys I was playing with, I’d be in with a shout.”

Dunbar had kept the momentum going late on in his third round to stay well in the hunt, helped by a quite spectacular approach shot from trees to the 15th.

Having pushed his tee-shot into the cluster of trees to the right of the fairway, his options were either to chip out or make an aggressive play which entailed aiming some 50 yards right of the flag and hooking the ball in the direction of the green.

He went for the spectacular, hitting a low hook that avoided the branches and ran over the hillocks onto the putting surface.

“It was a perfect shot,” he conceded, adding: “I think it was going sideways at the end.”

That miraculous par was the catalyst for a stirring finish to his third round, as he birdied the 16th and then hit a six-iron approach from 195 yards to set up a three-foot birdie putt on the 18th.

He was just two behind Lennox, with Nicol two shots farther back.

It was in Dunbar’s favour that he was grouped with leader Lennox going into the final round and, by the time they walked off the fourth green, parity had been reached.

Dunbar offset a bogey on the first with birdies on the second and fourth, while Lennox bogeyed the first.

A run of four successive bogeys from the fifth by Lennox handed the initiative to Dunbar, and he rattled off a succession of pars to stay in control.

The danger actually came from the group ahead, where Nicol hit a three-wood approach from 280 yards to 20 feet on the 14th and rolled in the eagle putt.

It moved him from six-over for the championship to four-over, at that point just a shot behind Dunbar.

The drama was to go to the wire.

As the leaders reached the closing holes, almost simultaneously Dunbar bogeyed the 17th and Nicol bogeyed the 18th.

It meant a par on the last would be sufficient for Dunbar to become the first Irish winner of the title since Noel Fox in 2003.

Word of the situation reached him as he walked to the 18th, and the Rathmore golfer hit a hybrid off the tee followed by a five-iron from 205 yards to 20 feet.

Two putts later, and he was Irish Amateur Open champion.

“To win another one (after the St Andrews) means more when you win again,” acknowledged Dunbar.

His aim is to make the Britain and Ireland Walker Cup team next year at Royal Aberdeen. Only after that will he allow his thoughts to move towards a professional career.