This Is Guernsey

By Rob Batiste

Garry McFarlane chips to the 11th green yesterday at L’Ancresse, watched by caddy Duncan Merchant. (Picture by Daniel Guerin, 0593723)

GARRY MCFARLANE’S golden summer rolls on. The 34-year-old Scot yesterday beat former pro Paul Le Chevalier 2 and 1 to add the Fortis CI men’s matchplay championship to his island title and his new L’Ancresse course record.

‘I’m very proud to have won it,’ said the L’Ancresse member on the back of the 17th green, having gathered himself from the shock of being kissed by his caddie, burly Duncan Merchant.

‘He kissed me in the eye and I couldn’t see,’ said McFarlane, who momentarily lost his contact lens in the excitement of it all.
McFarlane won by withstanding a much improved post-lunch display by the five-times Jersey title-holder and twice winner of the CI championship.

Two up at lunch, McFarlane, who was never behind, had to survive Le Chevalier upping his game and benefited from a shocking miss by the Caesarean on the 16th the second time around, before settling the issue with a magnificent birdie up the 17th.

McFarlane denied the tension was getting to him down the final stretch, although the evidence of nervous putts at 13 and 15 suggested it might have been, particularly on the latter where he left a seven-footer for the win 12 inches short.

‘I wasn’t worried about myself. I felt good all day.

‘I was hitting the ball well and the putting wasn’t bad.

‘Generally, I played a little more solidly [than he did].’

It is fruitless to suggest what might have happened had the big-hitting Jerseyman not missed from two feet at the 16th, but it was certainly a crucial moment.

McFarlane must have thought his escape route on that particular hole had gone when his delicate chip from just off the back trickled down the slope and nearly into the hole.

But Le Chevalier pulled away from the putt once and looked far from confident as he then produced the ugliest of jabs to send the ball into and out of the cup.

McFarlane had got away with it and, while the gallery crossed the road awaiting the denouement, Le Chevalier angrily threw his putter away, having missed a gaping opportunity to level.

Le Chevalier then ignored the temptation of trying to drive the 17th, his safety-first play leaving him with a 50-yard approach to the green with his second.

The problem with that, however, was that McFarlane, consistently shorter off the tee, had taken the shortest route for the second time in the day and left his ball on the front fringe, near the left of the two bunkers protecting from the front of the putting surface.

With Le Chevalier having let his high approach into the green fall short to the front right, McFarlane skidded a chip 10ft past.

The Jerseyman then putted eight feet past and crossed everything in the hope his opponent would miss and let him off the hook.

Merchant paid special interest in his man’s putting line and before McFarlane moved over the ball, he pointed to a spot on the green about halfway between ball and hole.

The cool Scot revealed he had picked his own line, fractionally away from the glistening mark his caddie had pointed to, but the ball still disappeared into the hole and the title was his, albeit with one contact lens down.

McFarlane was forgiving.

‘I couldn’t have done it without my caddie.

‘He was superb,’ said the man who places his sudden elevation in status on the island golf scene down to confidence and being able to finishing off the approaches.

‘My putting improved last year and it’s made all the difference,’ he claimed.

Nobody who saw his birdie at the seventh in the afternoon would argue with that self-assessment.

With Le Chevalier having put an iron to 30 inches from the pin, McFarlane picked the line from 15ft and sunk it for his own two.

The pair hit the turn in two-under 33s and the mistakes remained few and far between over the inward half.

Le Chevalier’s duffed chip cost him at the short 12th, but he was on his game at the long 539-yard par 14, where he birdied with a monster drive all of 320 yards, followed by a six iron to virtually pin high and a good putt to ‘gimme’ length.

But, spectators will doubtless think, it will be a long while before he forgets that nightmare miss which followed three holes later.

Article posted on 16th June, 2008 - 2.29pm