Golf: Dougherty is left to rue his final hole ‘disaster’

May 24 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

“DISASTER, that’s the only word for it,” said Nick Dougherty as he walked off the 18th at Wentworth yesterday after a triple bogey eight at the final hole sent him tumbling down the leaderboard in the BMW PGA Championship.

“I didn’t play very good, but I was getting it round well, then it caught up with me at the 18th,” said Dougherty, who at one under par is 12 strokes behind leader Paul McGinley and seemingly only battling for the minor placings over the weekend.

On the tee at the 18th he stood at four under par after birdies at the 11th, 12th and 17th and just one dropped shot at the ninth – but then disaster.

He pushed his tee shot into deep rough just under the bushes down the right and had to take a penalty drop.

His recovery shot bounded across the fairway into a bunker on the other side. From there he found a ditch with his fourth, incurring another penalty shot, hit his sixth to the front fringe and took two more to get down.

It’s a measure of the man – he celebrates his 26th birthday today – that he still signed dozens of autographs as he walked past the young fans having handed in a bitterly disappointing scorecard.

I hope he shoots the lights out round the fabled west course over the next two – nice guys should prosper.

Lee Slattery missed out by two strokes as the second day scores tumbled on a calm afternoon.

After coming in late in the morning with more than half the field still to go out, his second round 73 giving him a three over par total of 147, the 29-year-old Southport professional was pessimistic about his chances of playing over the weekend and was proved right.

“There’s not much wind about today and the greens are a bit softer so the scoring should get a bit better this afternoon,” he remarked.

Slattery dropped shots at the first and the ninth and birdied the long fourth to be out in 36. He dropped further shots at the tenth and 15th before birdies at 16 and 18, but it wasn’t destined to be enough.

Phil Archer added a 72 to his opening 77 to bow out on five over par 149.

The Warrington professional dropped strokes at the first, second and eighth on the way out, then picked up birdies at the 12th, 16th and 18th on the way home, but the damage had already been done in the first round.

Ormskirk’s David Shacklady will also be heading back north today, his brief visit to the big league also ending after two rounds.

The Mossock Hall professional, who qualified by winning last year’s North Region order of merit, added a second round 76 to his opening 76 to finish on 152 – eight over par.