Superb Smith wins in style at Emerald

By Andrew Smith
IN a nail-biting finish to the Maurie Murphy Summer Cup final, Andrew Smith played strongly on the back nine to clinch the three round par event on Saturday.
Andrew Tudor led the field into the final round by two points over Peter Stevens and Brett Isherwood.
Trailing by three points were Ken Hill, Brian McCoy and Andrew Smith with the rest of the field having to make up too much ground to be in serious contention for the cup.
The decision to tee-off early by Stevens, Isherwood and Hill may have been the difference as they played through the worst conditions of the day.
Isherwood and Hill fell away from the leader while Stevens played a very solid game to make up one more point taking his final score to +3, just 1 point behind Tudor.
McCoy had made up two points after seven holes and was looking like a real chance to take hold of the cup.
But he came back to the field over the back nine holes, leaving just Tudor and Smith to battle it out and attempt to post a better score than Stevens.
Tudor started well, picking up points on the second and fifth holes, but then faltered on seven and nine to record a front nine square with the card.
Smith scratched the second hole then recovered to pick up points on the third and fourth.
After finishing the first nine holes, Smith had closed the gap by just one point and still trailed Tudor by two and Stevens by one.
Tudor again made ground by picking up another point on the par 5 11th hole and again on the 17th, but he dropped points on 12 and 14 to finish square with the card for the day, +4 overall and ending all chance for Stevens.
Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to hold off Smith who gained momentum on the back nine to finish with a +3.
This gave Smith a +4 for the day and an overall score of +5, edging out Tudor by just one point and taking the honours for the Maurie Murphy Summer Cup.
Winners for the day were A Grade: Andrew Smith (13) +4; B Grade: Peter Clowes (17) +3 on a countback over Rod Ward; C Grade: Anthony Smith (30) even.
Nearest to the pins were won by Andrew Smith on the 4th, Dave Hunt on the 7th, Peter Clowes on the 13th, and for the second week running for the Pro-Pin on the 18th, was Ken Hill with another terrific shot.%