Chris Wood: Hats off to Lawrie for a matchplay epic

There was one interesting fact that the Scottish golf fans who lined the ropes at Murcar Links on Saturday might have been unaware of. Of the eight players who reached the quarter-finals of the Paul Lawrie Matchplay tournament, three of us – myself, David Howell and Marc Warren – are all signed up with the same Octagon management agency.

With that extra added internal rivalry, albeit very amicable, you would have thought one of us would have lifted our game that extra notch to win the newest event on the European schedule.

Unfortunately, it was not to be, even though the draw seemed to work in a way that over the space of 24 hours there was always an inter-Octagon match being played somewhere out on the course.

On Thursday and Friday, I had been really happy with my golf as I notched up victories over South Africa’s JBE Kruger and Spain’s Jorge Campillo, winning both games by an impressive 5&4 margin. And although I won the Saturday morning third match against Julien Quesne two-up, my golf had deteriorated a bit.

That was to cost me playing against Howeller in the afternoon. I made a few mistakes and David cashed in on them, and anyway, he’s a very hard man to be beat in the matchplay format because he has such a formidable putting stroke.

But flying back south from Aberdeen, it just occurred to me how much I enjoy head-to head golf as a break from the four-day tournaments we play every week out on Tour.

Why? Well it is a simple equation which says that playing against six or seven men in a Matchplay event over six or seven rounds, the odds on pulling off a victory must be better than beating 155 others in four rounds of strokeplay.

And given how we can all make birdies when playing well, we all know we can beat anyone on our day.

The flight home also gave me time to reflect on the effort put in by Paul Lawrie to organise a new event on our schedule, and to talk sponsor Saltire Energy into backing it. In my time on Tour, Paul, like Colin Montgomerie, has done so much to promote golf in Scotland with his Foundation for youngsters.

And he also now has a golf centre in Aberdeen, which my caddie went to while we were at Murcar to hit some balls, and he says the facilities were just brilliant. None of us had anything but praise for the Matchplay week, and all I can say is that I hope when I get to his age I am in a position to put as much back into golf as he does.

In the shorter term, I am back in Bristol this week working hard to get my game in shape for the USPGA at Whistling Straits. I played there five years ago and missed the cut by one shot, but I can’t wait to get back and play it again because it is just such an amazing place. The course is a modern design, but every hole is just a mass of sand traps. I don’t know whether anyone has actually counted them, but it is said there are more than 1,000 all around the course.

And then there is the very strong finish. The 17th is a long and difficult par three, and I don’t think there is a finishing hole anywhere to beat the 18th.

That said, I have been really pleased with the way I have been playing lately, and I’m looking forward to taking on all the challenges Whistling Straits has to offer.

*This article was originally published in TGP on 5 August 2015

 

Tagged Chris Wood, European Tour, Paul Lawrie Matchplay, Saltire Energy Paul Lawrie Matchplay