Australia's Steve Collins rode his luck to hold a two-stroke lead in the Australian Masters yesterday in wild, wet and windy conditions as Tom Watson and Nick Faldo failed to beat par.
Collins, a self-confessed under-achiever, shot six birdies and two bogeys in his round of four-under-par 68 at Melbourne's Huntingdale Golf Club. The 30-year-old turned with an outward nine of 32 but bogeyed the par-three 15th and par-four 18th holes.
Australia's Adam Scott and Peter Lonard shared second place on two-under-par 70 ahead of a group of seven more Australia players on one-under 71.
Lonard, a joint winner of last week's Australian PGA Championship, had a share of the lead after 17 holes yesterday before carding a double-bogey six on the 18th for a 70.
Wayne Riley, Martin Doyle, Gavin Coles, Adam Crawford, Tony Carolan, Steven Conran and last week's joint Australian PGA champion Jarrod Moseley shared fourth place after carding 71s.
Collins, a British-born Western Australian, turned professional at 22 and won an Australia tournament, the New South Wales Masters, in March this year. He admitted to having some luck at Huntingdale yesterday.
"I got a few fortunate breaks," Collins told a news conference.
"On the second I hit a pole on the left-hand side that holds the gallery rope up. It bounced onto the fairway and I made birdie.
"On the fourth hole I turned a five-wood over and it was destined for the tea-trees. It caught one of the cameramen on the arm, dropped straight down and I had a clear shot at the green. I took par.
"If you followed those two shots through to where they should have finished, I could have been four shots worse off very quickly."
American teenager Ty Tryon and playing partner, six-times major winner Faldo, slogged through the wind and rain for five and a half hours before carding two-over-par 74s.
"On a scale of one to 10, that's a very tough day, with the speed of the greens and just judging the wind," Faldo told reporters.
"I'm really pleased finishing with two-over. I started poorly [bogey-bogey]," said the 45-year-old Briton.
Tryon said: "I did not know you had hurricanes in Australia. I did not think if it rained like that we would play in it."
Els honored for six titles
Ernie Els was named the European Tour's player of the year yesterday after winning six titles worldwide in 2002, including the British Open at Muirfield.
In addition to his Open triumph, the 33-year-old won the Heineken Classic in Melbourne, the US PGA Tour's Genuity Classic, the Dubai Desert Classic, the World Match Play title at Wentworth and last week's Sun City Challenge in his native South Africa.
"This is the perfect end to a perfect year," Els said on the European Tour Web site.
"It is a fantastic honor and caps a wonderful season in which I finally achieved my lifelong ambition of winning the [British] Open and my wife Liezl gave birth to our first son Ben."
"My goal at the start of the season was to add one more major to my two US Open titles and I achieved that -- although I had to do it the hard way," added Els, who beat Australians Stuart Appleby and Steve Elkington and Thomas Levet of France in the Open playoff.
Els was chosen for the award by a panel of judges from the Association of Golf Writers, Television and Radio.
The South African was nominated ahead of compatriot Retief Goosen, Ireland's Padraig Harrington, Scot Colin Montgomerie, Eduardo Romero of Argentina, Sergio Garcia of Spain, England's Justin Rose and victorious Ryder Cup captain Sam Torrance.
Goosen, winner of the award last year, topped the European order of merit for the second consecutive year ahead of Harrington, while Rose and Garcia were also in the running after their multiple-win seasons.
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