Golf: Dundas makes Masters plans: Tim Glover reports from Carnoustie
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Your support makes all the difference.STEPHEN DUNDAS became the first Scotsman in 35 years to win the Amateur Championship when he defeated Bradley Dredge in a one-sided final here yesterday. 'Augusta here I come,' Dundas said. Winning the most prestigious tournament in amateur golf has its rewards and one of them is a priceless invitation to next April's Masters.
Dundas is already used to American courses. He gained a scholarship to the Midland Junior College in Texas last January and has been playing and practising golf every day since. He is also exempt for the next two Open Championships.
Dundas began playing golf at the age of four, the year he started to wear spectacles. He will be 19 in December and although there have been younger winners of the Amateur - the South African Bobby Cole was one month past his 18th birthday when he won in 1966 - there have been few as composed.
Dundas, a member of Haggs Castle in Glasgow, outplayed Dredge by the crushing margin of 7 and 6 in the 36-hole final after going into lunch five up. Dredge, 19, a member of the Bryn Meadows club near Newport, won the third in the morning with a birdie-three to go one up, but by the sixth Dundas had the lead and he never lost it.
The seventh was typical. The 6ft 3in Scot hit a nine-iron to eight feet and holed the putt; Dredge missed from five feet. At the short eighth Dredge, who washes dishes at his mother's coffee shop to help pay for his golf, hit out of bounds on the left. At the 14th he topped his drive, moving his ball 50 yards instead of 250, and he was four down.
About the only thing that went right was at the 15th where he sank a putt from around 65 feet and he looked like winning the next until Dundas got up and down from a bunker, holing from 12 feet for a half. Dundas won the next two in style, hitting a three-iron 220 yards on to the 17th and a five-iron 190 yards on to the 18th. Dredge won the 20th but Dundas increased his lead, taking the 22nd, the 23rd and the 26th where he holed a bunker shot from 40 feet for a two.
Dundas, with the enthusiastic support of the crowd on a perfect day for golf, rarely made a mistake and when the end came prematurely on the 30th, the champion was embraced on the green by his mother. The penalties of youth.
AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP (Carnoustie) Final: S Dundas (Haggs Castle) bt B Dredge (Bryn Meadows) 7 and 6.
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