ALEX LOVES THE NOREN LIGHTS
SPORTS FILE Swede has it Wall to play for in match play final
Scottish Open winner Alex Noren will face England’s Anthony Wall in the final of the Aberdeen Asset Management Paul Lawrie Match Play today.
Noren won the Scottish Open at Castle Stuart in July.
He made light work of beating fellow countryman Johan Carlsson 4 and 2 in the quarter-finals at Archerfield this week before seeing off England’s James Morrison 3 and 2 in the semi-finals.
Wall has played 431 European Tour events since collecting the only win of his career in South Africa 16 years ago.
He chipped in for an eagle to beat Haydn Porteous in their quarter-final match before edging out Oliver Fisher at the fourth extra hole in the semi-final tie.
Noren went four clear in his last-eight match after notching up five successive birdies from the second and Carlsson never threatened to draw level.
Noren, a five-time winner on The European Tour, made a similarly impressive start after lunch when an
Bill McIntyre
opening hat- trick of gains put him three-up on Morrison.
A 10-footer for a birdie at the seventh then sent Noren four clear.
Morrison won the ninth and 10th to halve the deficit but he failed to get up and down from a bunker at the 11th.
A birdie from 15ft at the 12th kept Morrison’s hopes alive but Noren holed a 10-footer at the next to restore a three- up lead that he refused to give up.
Noren said: “It feels amazing. I’ve never even been close in a match play event before. It’s pretty hard mentally these matches but I like it.”
Wall was never behind against Fisher. He took the seventh but his opponent levelled with a birdie from 20ft on the next.
However, Wall immediately regained his advantage as Fisher paid for a wayward drive at the ninth.
Wall bogeyed the 17th and it was not until the 22nd hole that he got up and down from the rough to settle the tie.