GOLF: Renwick reaches semi-finals of Amateur Championship
AFTER his recent successes in America, Hill Barn Golf Club's Darren Renwick announced his return home by reaching the semi-finals of The Amateur Golf Championship at Formby & West Lancashire Golf Club last week.
After winning his first four matches to fly into the semi-finals, Renwick was high on confidence and had his eyes set on tournament glory. But he lost in the last four of the prestigious competition to the eventual winner, 16-year-old Italian Matteo Manassero, who beat him 4&3.
Renwick, who has now moved up 194 places to 132 in the Men's Amateur Golf World Rankings, faced a huge task to overcome the young Italian star, who had won the strokeplay qualifying competition, and recently finished 20th in the Italian Open on the European Tour. Manassero also beat the English No 1, Sam Huttsby, 4&3 in the final to be crowned the youngest ever champion.
Just reaching the semi-finals was a tremendous achievement for Renwick, and he said: "To get so close to winning and then not, is always disappointing. But I can only be pleased with the golf I played over the five days.
"The first objective was to reach the matchplay stages and I felt very comfortable in qualifying. We set a plan and a target number and with a few holes to go I was well within it and made it by two.
"In the first round, I played Pontus Widegren, from Sweden, in a tight match. I wasn't in the lead until I made eagle on the par five 17th. He lost his tee shot on the 18th and it was game over.
"The second round saw me drawn to play Tommy King, from Surrey. I played immaculate golf and got to the turn six-up and finished the match off 7&5.
"Finishing my morning match early was good but it meant I had a long wait before my afternoon match against Steve Ziegler, who is ranked 26 in the Amateur rankings.
"This was another tight match as I was two-down after eight but then won three on the spin to go one-up. We were all-square heading down the 18th and I made a perfect birdie to win the match one-up and move into the quarter finals.
"On Friday, it was much windier, and Mark Hillson played better than me for the first 11 holes and I was three-down.
"I needed something special and I produced it by winning six of the next seven holes to win the match two-up. My confidence was high and I knew I could win the tournament the way I was playing.
"I actually played well in the semi-final. I made two small mistakes, whereas Matteo made none and he holed a couple of outrageous putts, but apparently that was the way he had played all week.
"The television cameras had been around all week, and in the semi-final we had our own camera which followed our every step during the match.
"To have such close TV attention was another great experience and my caddy Paul and I did have a few laughs about it when walking down the fairways."
Spaniard Sergio Garcia, who is ranked world No 4, is a past winner of the tournament. And Jos Maria Olazbal and Colin Montgomerie are both past runners-up.
The championship had an original field of 288, which was cut down to 64 by 36 holes of strokeplay over two days.
Worthing's Jack Bartlett reached the last 16, where he lost to Hillson one-down, and Worthing team mate Ben Martin shot rounds of 74 and 79 for 153 in the qualifier to miss the cut by six shots.
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Weather for Worthing
Tuesday 29 May 2012
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