Australian Open golf: World’s best can’t keep up with Matt Jones

Matt Jones has won the Australian Open for the first time at a course he has frequented since he was a teenager.

Australia's Matt Jones (2/R) kisses his daughter Saber (R) as his wife Melissa (L) and fellow daughter Savannah (2/L) look on at the 18th green after Jones won the Australian Open golf tournament in Sydney on November 29, 2015. AFP PHOTO / William WEST --IMAGE RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - NO COMMERCIAL USE--

Your name is Matt Jones. You’re a member here. You learned the game here. You know the course. You know the winds. You know the good spots. You know the bad spots. You know virtually every Tom, Dick and Harry in the crowd. You want to win the Australian Open on your home patch of dirt. You want it so much you can barely function.

Jones used to skip around the lush fairways of The Australian Golf Club as a teenager. He played in the low-tier pennant teams. He used to see the Stonehaven Cup in the clubhouse with the names of Nicklaus and Thomson and Norman on it and think, what about me? Here was his chance.

Leading by the proverbial mile, he held the Stonehaven Cup in his trembling hands. He nearly dropped it. His final putt dropped into the hole like it was collapsing from stress.

It wasn’t terribly pretty. “Terribly is a very nice word for what I did,” an emotional Jones said after his one-shot victory over Australia’s Adam Scott and US world No 1. Jordan Spieth. “But I got the job done. There was a lot of anxious moments out there but I came through. It’s amazing to get my name on the same trophy as Greg Norman. It was something I would have dreamt about when I was six and I met him. To have my name on this trophy is a dream come true and something no one can ever take away from me. I battled away. I could have let it slip but I hung on.”

This was tournament golf at its theatrical best. A classic showdown. Queenslander Rod Pampling was a huge 14 shots behind Jones at the start of the day. He drained a monster 70-foot putt for eagle on the 18th hole for a breathtaking course-record round of 10-under par 61. Pampling was tied for the lead for nearly two hours while perched in the comfort of the clubhouse. Jones made a galling triple-bogey seven on the ninth hole. Scott was bolting home. Nine in arrears when he teed off, he conjured a majestic closing round of 65. Minute by minute, shot by shot, Jones’s nerves became frayed. Spieth was there and thereabouts. The centenary edition of the championship remained in doubt until Jones’s last nervous stab at a putt.

Australian Open champions have developed a keen knack of winning major championships the following year. Jones said he aspired to emulate the overseas successes of the likes of Scott, Spieth and Jason Day. For one day at least, he did more than match their deeds; he beat them.