BLAND BLOWS CHANCE
411 events without a title
ONE Hampshire golfer must be wondering if he will ever win on the European Tour, while another snatched victory from the brink of defeat in the Amateur Championship final.
Talk about contrasting emotions. Richard Bland is now 44 and looked destined to win on tour for the first time at the 411th attempt when Sergio Garcia missed a tiddler three holes from home.
However Bland, playing alongside the Masters champion in the final group at the BMW International, made a hash of the next hole to allow Argentina’s forgotten man Andres Romero to steal the title from under his nose with a storming finish.
At Royal St George’s on Saturday, 21-year- old Harry Ellis put together the closing stretch of a lifetime to earn himself an invitation to The Open next month and the Masters next year.
Four down with five to play and three down with three to go, it looked for all the world as if the prestigious title and all its fabulous perks were heading the way of Australian Dylan Perry.
This was the 122nd Amateur and there cannot have been too many decided in such dramatic fashion as Ellis fought back and Perry crumbled under pressure.
Ellis let out a guttural roar after winning at the 38th hole and dedicated his win to loved ones he has lost over the last four years.
After becoming the youngest winner of the English Amateur Championship in 2012, fate took a tragic turn the following year when his mother passed away with cancer, just as he was starting at Florida State University. Ellis has also lost his grandfather and his mentor, teaching professional John Sterling.
‘I want to dedicate the win to all three, and I guess after what has happened over the last few years it made the position in which I found myself against Dylan easier to handle,’ he said.
The privileges of victory begin at Royal Birkdale next month and Ellis said: ‘ I can hardly wait.’
As for Romero, it’s 10 years since he should have won the Claret Jug. Two shots clear with two holes to go at Carnoustie, he finished double bogey-bogey to miss out by a shot. His career went into such freefall he tumbled to 837th in the world and had to rely on an invitation to make the BMW field. How he took full advantage with a blis- teringover Tommy Garcia64 Fleetwoodfor a and one-shot finishingBland, triumphsixthwith to continue his good form. Meanwhile, at the Travelers Championship on the PGA Tour, there were signs of the real Rory McIlroy as he finished with a 64 — despite a bogey at the last — for a seven-under-par total. It wasn’t enough to disturb the leader, Jordan Spieth, who began his final round last night on 12 under, but will put McIlroy in good heart for a trio of tournaments in the UK, beginning with the Irish Open next week.