Fox stays clear of the pack

Calmly confronting the pressures of a comfortable lead, Noel Fox became a thoroughly impressive winner of the Ulster Bank-sponsored Irish Amateur Open Strokeplay title at Royal Dublin yesterday. The famous finishing hole was bathed in bright, evening sunshine as the Portmarnock international completed a closing 74 for an aggregate of 284 - four under par.

It gave the 26-year-old company executive a three-stroke victory over playing partner Michael McDermott and the experienced Ken Kearney in a share of second place. And it brought Fox his third important title, coming after the East of Ireland of 1996 and the West of two years ago.

"I'm really pleased to have won at a venue that I normally play well," he said. "In fact I love this course, which I have played more often than any other, with the exception of Portmarnock."

From his earliest days in representative golf, Fox always had the stamp of quality. And his shotmaking skills, allied to formidable power, were much in evidence in a third round of 69 yesterday morning which swept him three strokes clear of McDermott after 54 holes.

Then, an eventful afternoon saw local man Eamonn Brady shoot a closing 67, which often threatened to become a few strokes better. And Kearney, who knows how to win at this level, mounted a serious challenge, only to see it peter out through a three-putt bogey at the short ninth, and another bogey at the 10th, where he took three to get down from off the back of the green.

Meanwhile, the overseas challenge was led, as we suspected it would be, by South Africa's Nico LeGrange, who shot a final round of 71 for 289.

"This was my first experience of links golf and I can't believe how much I've learned," he said. "After all those bump and run shots, I feel I am now a far better player than when I came here."

Brady, who captured the West of Ireland title for a second time last month, emphasised his current form with a recent 63 on the yellow course at Royal Dublin. So, he was understandably angry with himself after a dispiriting third round of 77 before lunch.

"Everything I missed in the morning I got this afternoon," he said after his final round. Which translated into a stunning front nine of 30, with birdies at the first, second, fifth, seventh and eighth. And even when he bogeyed the 10th, where he missed the green and pitched poorly, Brady kept up the pressure.

By that stage, however, Fox was solidly in control, though his progress was not without incident. Indeed his afternoon round became especially interesting when compared with a morning effort in which he reaped a rich dividend from the par fives, carding birdies at all four of them.

He seemed set to repeat this dominance in the afternoon when a birdie at the second left him coasting at that stage. And by the time he and playing partners Joe Moore and McDermott had gone through the seventh, he was six strokes clear of the Stackstown player.

Then came the long eighth, which remained comfortably reachable downwind. On this occasion, however, Fox drove into a bunker on the left, was short of the green in three, fluffed an attempted flop shot from the right and eventually ran up a double-bogey seven.

Still, the lead remained four strokes. But it was reduced to three when he was left of the green at the short ninth for a bogey four.

"To be honest, I would have been concerned only if someone got within two strokes of me," he said, before adding with a smile, "and if that had happened, I'd soon have learned of it."

After 63 holes, he still had his original three-stroke lead over McDermott, and so it remained when they went through the 12th. Then, as if getting his second wind, Fox went on to birdie the long 14th, which he reached with a very impressive five-iron second shot of 210 yards. He also birdied the 16th, where a three-wood tee-shot finished 20 feet from the pin.

With his earlier cushion restored, he could shrug off a pushed drive uncomfortably close to the out-of-bounds drain on the 17th, which he bogeyed. And he also bogeyed the last, where a nine-foot par putt hit the hole and stayed out.

But by that stage the hard work had been done in a confident performance worthy of a champion.

As for McDermott, who captured the Transvaal Open title in South Africa in March: his one-under-par aggregate confirmed his status as a player of tremendous potential.

"I was hugely impressed," said Fox of his 20-year-old playing partner. "He is the best young player I've been with this year, with the exception of Michael Hoey."

Jochen Lupprian became the first German to win the English Open Strokeplay Championship for the Brabazon Trophy when he carded a closing 72 at Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire.

The 21-year-old, who lives near Munich, finished on eight-under-par 284, two strokes clear of Welsh international Jamie Donaldson and three ahead of England's David Griffiths.