Faldo `back in top form'

Greg Chalmers, 25th in Europe this season, came closest to beating par over the Royal Adelaide course and duly won the Australian Open yesterday. His level-par total of 288 was good enough to beat Stuart Appleby and Peter Senior by one shot, with Nick Faldo three adrift and joint fourth.

Chalmers won £72,000 but more importantly boosted his confidence for an assault on the US Tour next year. He became the first left-hander to take the title since the amateur Claude Felstead won at Royal Melbourne in 1909.

The Australian, who had a chance for a 59 in the English Open at Hanbury Manor but "slumped" to a 61, leaped into the lead with three birdies in his first four holes yesterday, and thereafter led by two or more shots until he bogeyed the last. That left Appleby needing a birdie for a play-off, but his putt to tie was never on line.

Faldo felt sufficiently encouraged by his performance to say: "I'm definitely back. It's been a great week and I'm coming up with the pressure shots again." But he was again angry about his treatment in the tabloid press. He feels that, as a single man, he is entitled to have girlfriends and not be portrayed as a "love rat".

He said yesterday: "I haven't said one word to the press, not one word, and Valerie (his new girlfriend) has not said a word either. They've phoned up and I've put the phone down. I didn't even say `no comment' and yet there are quotes from both of us. How can that happen?"

For Faldo to have any golfing influence here he had to exert pressure early. On Saturday he had started with three successive birdies; yesterday he was four shots worse over the same stretch and, from being one behind Appleby at the start of the day, he was quickly four behind Chalmers, who had birdies on the second, third and fourth. Faldo also birdied the fourth but the feeling it was not to be his day quickened at the 6th, a difficult enough hole even without missing from inside two feet, as the Englishman did. From there on, in the easiest conditions of the week, Faldo went into par mode.

The spell was broken at the 15th, a par-four verging on the impossible. It is 486 yards long, played into the prevailing wind and dog-legged so that the longest drives are almost certain to finish in sand or long grass.

Faldo holed a huge putt from just off the green to gain a birdie, which produced a mock bow to the crowds. It moved the Englishman to joint fourth with Robert Allenby at three-over par, 291, and completed what he felt was, on the course at least, a good week.

"The tip from Norman von Nida was probably the best I've ever had," said Faldo, who had been advised by the 85-year-old Australian to grip the club as lightly as he could with the left hand.

"It's cured my number one fault for ever; now I can get a lot better turn with the legs. My ball-striking has improved dramatically, I'm coming up with the pressure shots now and my concentration has improved."