The hole that nearly ruined Matt Jones’s Open dream

In the end he won, but a disastrous ninth hole nearly ruined Matt Jones’s Australian Open dream.

Matt Jones plays his approach shot on the 9th hole during day four of the Australian Open at The Australian Golf Club yesterday

Ninth hole. Harmless par four. Matt Jones held a three-shot lead from an adrenalised Rod Pampling. He dragged his drive to the left. The ball clipped a tree. It struck a female marshal on the crown of her head.

Pale-faced and embarrassed, she said she was fine. All she sought was an apology.

It was not forthcoming. Not that Jones was to blame. By the time he reached the Titleist with the red dot on it, the grey-haired marshal had moved down the fairway as part of her volunteer duties. Jones was in the light rough. Decent lie. He could fly the lone tree in his way.

Yet even before the triple-bogey that nearly ruined Jones’ Australian Open, he was veering on the status of nervous wreck, muttering to himself, even more fidgety than normal, for all the world a man who was hanging on by a thread. The lie was OK.

He was less fortuitous than Jordan Spieth had been on the par-five fifth hole. Spieth yanked his drive left, too. The first bounce came flush off the shin bone of a bloke in a red cap. An unintentional kick sent Spieth’s ball to the middle of the fairway. The spectator considered the merits of taking a dive. Acting as if he’d been shot, Spieth might give him a hat. He decided against it. The bruise was severe. Spieth came and went without saying a word.

Back to the ninth. Harmful par four. The hole the tournament was nearly relinquished. Jones swung hard. Caught it a bit thin. Kate Moss-thin. Trajectory was lost. The ball brushed the very top of the large tree and dived into a pond. “Go!” shouted Jones when the ball was between the tree and the pond. “No!” he screamed when he witnessed the splash. As pale-faced and embarrassed as the marshal presently nursing her sore head, Jones studied his divot as though it was a flesh wound.

LEADERBOARD: How they finished

He reached the pond. He could not get to his ball unless he swam to it. He called for a rules official. His mouth was dry. He could barely get the words out. He took a penalty drop, came up short with his approach and three-putted for a triple. The loudest groan was his own. The back nine would examine the resilience. Momentum had been lost. Hope remained. He was still the co-leader. He trod water for the next holes. He sank a crucial par-saving bunker shot on the par-four 12th. He birdied the par-five 14th, birdied the par-four 16th.

He took an iron off the 17th tee for safety. Trees! His shirt was untucked at the back. Unravelling? He scrambled a par. He negotiated his 72nd hole of the 100th Australian Open without finding another pond and without conking another marshal on the skull. Just. He had to lay up. He threw his club to the ground on the follow-though of his approach. Disaster! Not quite. His final putt fell in the hole. Just. He fell over the line. Just. He won his national championship in a stressful head-to-head duel with the world No 1. He was spared the tag of choker. The triple bogey no longer mattered. Water off a duck’s back.

“Nine out of 10 times I would just go straight over that tree on the ninth,” he said. “It just caught the top. I just wanted to get to the back nine with a chance because I knew I could make some birdies.

“It was tough. It was just a bad shot but I knew I was still in the lead at the time, so I wasn’t that shaken. Getting up and down for par on the 10th was very important in not letting it slip.

“I could have let it go. I could have started going bogey-bogey and been in trouble. There were a lot of anxious moments out there but I hung on.”