GOLF: Matt Jones is the 2015 Australian Open champion, producing his biggest tournament triumph on home soil at the club where he played pennant golf as a teenager, The Australian.
Sydney's Jones, 35, an under-rated player on the United States PGA Tour for a decade, won by a shot from world No.1 Jordan Spieth and world No.12 Adam Scott when he made par up the 18th, holing a putt from just more than a metre to get his hands on the prized Stonehaven Cup.
Jones limped to a final-round 73, two-over par, after starting the final day with a three-shot lead. But it was enough to post an eight-under-par total and win the $225,000 first prize.
Spieth missed a putt for eagle at the final hole that would have forced a playoff, leaving Jones to complete his par and mimic his idol, Greg Norman, in winning his national Open.
"It's amazing,'' Jones said.
"It's something I would have thought about from when I was six when I first met him. I tried not to think about it this week because I knew, as you saw today, anything can happen on a golf course. You can be one swing away from doing what I did and having no chance to win.
"To have my name on this trophy with like (Jack) Nicklaus, (Jack) Newton, Norman, all those guys, it’s a dream come true for me and it's something that I can’t have taken away from me.''
Jones grew up in Oyster Bay in Sydney's southern suburbs and graduated from The Australian Golf Club's pennant team, leaving Australia more than a decade ago to take up a golf scholarship in the US, then turning professional. His win at Houston on the PGA Tour last year was his first and the only professional victory before today.
It was a remarkable final day, not least for the stunning, 10-under par 61 by Rod Pampling that smashed Spieth's course record from last year and at one point, threatened to win the tournament for the Queenslander.
Scott closed with a 65 that gave him a chance, and until Jones' final putt, he had a chance of making a playoff.
Jones' final putt was tricky. It lipped in, from the left. "It's not the most comfortable putt,'' he said later. "I would've much preferred to leave it to a tap-in or gimme distance, but I was expecting Jordan to make that. I've played enough rounds of golf with him where he makes those putts. He didn't putt well today. I thought he was due to make one and he didn't. I was just lucky it caught the left lip and went in. I thought I'd missed it left but one of those things ... it just went in and I was very, very happy.''
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