Ryan Fox has scored the best round for the day of 8-under to grab second place in the ISPS Handa Vic Open being played at 13th Beach Golf Course in Barwon Heads today.
Coming from 6 shots behind the eventual winner 21-year-old Perth professional Min Woo Lee at the start of the final day, Fox has had a floorless round with 4 birdies and 2 eagles in his 64 shot round.
In an exciting finish, Fox was already in the clubhouse, when the final group that included Lee, were finishing the round.
Lee looked set for a comfortable 2 shot victory when he birdied 15th hole to go to 19-under, but a stumble on the 17th with a 4-shot bogey on the par 3 gave Fox a glimmer of hope with one hole for Lee to play.
Lee confidently birdied the 18th and resigned Fox to a 17-under outright second place.
After his round Fox was claiming this was the best round he’s ever played.
“Comfortably probably the best round I’ve played in a tournament,” Fox said.
“I would not have thought 64 was out there at the start of the day. It looked like there’s a few good scores from the guys.
“I made a couple of eagles obviously, which was nice. I hit a lot of shots inside sort of 15‑foot and made a couple of those, which is not really what you expect to do today.
“I kind of never really felt like I was under any pressure out there, which in conditions like this, that’s always nice. Looks like it’s going to be a couple short but I’m certainly not complaining.”
In the Women’s Vic Open, a South Korean triumvirate burst through the pack to reach a playoff in the women’s section of the ISPS Handa Vic Open, but it was Hee Young Park who triumphed in the end.
It took four holes for the 32-year-old to beat off her compatriots, Hye-Jin Choi and So Yeon Ryu.
Ultimately it was lost rather than necessarily won, as is often the case in playoffs.
The quasi-Australian So Yeon Ryu dropped out at the second hole when she found the greenside bunker with her second shot and failed to get up and down after all three players birdied it the first time around.
Then Choi drove it right off the tee at the fourth playoff hole, into deep mulga and blocked out by a tree. Her first attempt to move the ball resulted in it shifting only a few metres. The next ploughed into the swampland left of the hole, and once they reached the green, the pair wanted to end it by mutual consent, until a Golf Australia rules official pointed out that Park needed to hole out.
She eventually won with a par, having birdied the 18th in regulation and in the first three playoff holes, and having missed an eagle putt to finish it in the first playoff hole, quite a while earlier. She was the rightful winner.
