BARTLETT PUTTS HIS WAY TO CENTENARY SUCCESS

Jack Bartlett unwittingly carved a little bit of history for himself in winning the Sussex Amateur championship. By retaining his title at West Hove, he marked the centenary of the event and his fourth final in five years.  Fittingly, Sussex took their showpiece to a club also celebrating its 100th birthday.
            
The dry spell put a huge premium on control but Duncan Haste and his staff presented a challenge calling for all to exercise skill and ingenuity. Bartlett's putter won him his second championship at the expense of doughty campaigner Wayne Hawes, the 2004 champion, and it went to the 19th.  It was there Bartlett, 20, unzipped a match-winning pitch after flirting with trouble.  A good 30 yards off the green with his drive, he left his approach stone dead. Wayward driving did not prove fatal to Bartlett's chances even after his twice-taken efforts to stay in play at the 16th found only shrubbery and he conceded the hole bringing the match to all square.  At the 18th, Hawes' chance to win disappeared when his six-yarder stopped on the lip.
             
Both players took 39 or four over going out to illustrate the scrambling nature of the golf but Hawes never led and Bartlett's victory was popular with the strong support from his Worthing pals.  The 163-yard seventh further illustrated the inability of both players to cope with the green when they halved in five after each frittered strokes away. There were also touches of brilliance, notably the fifth when Bartlett's drive left him in semi-rough on a hanging lie.  From nearly 200 yards, and with a following breeze, he heaved a pitching wedge onto the green.  Hawes, whose second shot clipped a tree and travelled only a couple of yards, was grateful to halve the hole.
             
Bartlett's powers of recovery were constantly tested.  A six-yarder dropped at the 11th to regain the lead he had taken with a birdie at the second and, as the pressure intensified, missing the short 13th by a good 50 yards proved no problem when he pitched dead denying Hawes the birdie he so badly needed. Bartlett spurned a great chance to go two up at 15 when he missed from a yard but at the first extra hole, when it counted most, Bartlett finally closed the door that had remained open all afternoon.
             
Bartlett's hardest match over the three days was the quarter-final with Toby Tree.  Three down with four to play, he responded with solid pars at 15, 16 and 17 and won the 18th with a birdie.  It was close as well against Adam Galbraith, whom he beat at the 19th in the semi-finals.  Bartlett said:  "I didn't play well.  I was struggling.  I holed from 20ft for a par at 18 and Adam got down from 10ft and we went to the 19th.  He missed from 20ft and I holed mine from 10ft."
              
In qualifying, Bartlett's putter came to the rescue when he birdied 18 to squeeze into the last batch on 143 and nine strokes behind leading qualifier James Doswell on 134.  Bartlett is reading for a degree in business management in America and admitted he found conditions different to the national collegiate league.  He said:  "By comparison the courses are smaller here and firmer."
              
He is undecided about turning pro when his American studies are over.  His next stop is the British Amateur at Muirfield and North Berwick where he reached the last 16 last year.
              
Hawes, 31, said:  "I played my best golf in the quarter-finals and semis.  Sometimes a final is a match too far when tiredness can creep in.  I thought my putt at 18 was going down but the nap on the left took it just away from the hole.  Jack opened the door for me at 15 and 16 but I didn't quite cash in.  My putting wasn't on song as it had been in the earlier rounds."

John Vinicombe