Surprise-packet confident to the end
RIGHT up to the embarrassing moment he putted off the final green into a bunker, young Queenslander Aaron Pike believed he could pull off the unlikeliest of victories.
Tied for the lead in the Australian Masters at Huntingdale with just three holes to play, the burly 21-year-old amateur had forced English star Justin Rose to play desperate golf to win.
In the end, Pike, the leader for the first two days, said it was his inexperience which
cost him dearly – for while Rose collected a tiebreaking birdie at the 16th, Pike closed with two bogeys and watched his dream evaporate.
He surprised himself as his first putt at the 18th slid past the hole and into a trap, saying he was still baffled by the green speeds.
“I wasn’t trying to ram it in, I was thinking I need to hole this and Justin needs to make bogey at the last for me to win this,” Pike said.
“When I hit it I never thought I’d hit it that hard.
“The green previous was 10 feet slower than I’d thought and then the green two before that was ridiculously quick.
“The greens were a little bit sketchy out there today I think due to the traffic over them and some of them were exposed to the wind more so than others,” he said.
“(It was) a little bit of inexperience there…not playing the course every year for the last 10 years like most of these guys have done.”
He was expected to fold but Pike considered himself in a head-to-head dual with Rose, who was chasing his first victory in four years.
“When I looked at the board and saw I was tied for the lead, I definitely thought if I come home with another birdie and a couple of pars it would be tough for Justin to make two birdies.
“All the pacesetting was on me but I definitely thought I could win this tournament,” he said.
Pike said he enjoyed the final nine holes as a contender – “but not the scores I had” – and denied nerves were ever a factor.
“I was nervous but not as a fact that I couldn’t cope with it,” he said.
Despite outshining a classy field, he is not about to leap into the professional pool.
“Maybe if I had have won it would have put some thoughts into my mind,” he said.
“But I’m not good enough to win so I don’t think I’m good enough to turn professional – because if you can’t win what’s the point of being out there.”
Pike plans to play top level amateur events in the US and Britain and will then re-assess his situation.
“I think that experience would probably steady me and get me ready for it, but I’d have to see in a year’s time,” he said.
AAP