Patrick Kelly takes home the Boys Junior Orange Bowl International Golf Championship title
Patrick Kelly fired a five-under par 66 in the final round of the Boys Junior Orange Bowl International Golf Championship, to record an emphatic 13-stroke victory over Jamie Lopez-Rivarola, on Sunday, December 30, 2012.
The tournament was being staged at the Biltmore Golf Course, featuring top-notch amateurs from different parts of the world. A total of 61 players participated in this year’s edition of the tournament.
Right from the beginning of the tournament, Kelly did not allow any of his rivals to challenge him on the leaderboard.
Despite suffering from a number of ailments - conjunctivitis (pink eye), nose bleeds, a cold and an ear infection – he did not panic and played brilliantly on the course.
He fired a six-under par 65 in the opening round to surge to the top of the leaderboard. He then added 68 and 66 to his scorecard in the second and the third round, respectively.
Entering the final round, he held a massive seven-stroke lead. Thereafter, he stretched the margin to 13 strokes, to record an easy victory in the tournament.
“I was pretty confident with a seven-shot lead to start with,” Kelly said. “I would have had to lose it by playing poorly”.
The final round witnessed him getting off to a decent start, as he birdied two of the first nine holes to reach the turn in two under.
He then added another shot to his scorecard, by draining a birdie putt on the 11th hole. Thereafter, the last five holes saw him mixing two bogeys with the same number of birdies and an amazing chip-in-eagle on the 18th hole.
“It’s a thrill and an honour to win this famous event, Kelly said. “I’m delighted. It was just a week where everything worked. This is the best I’ve ever played”.
Kelly accumulated a four-day total of a 19-under par 265, three strokes better than Tiger Woods’ score of a 16-under that he scored in 1991.
“Hey, that’s pretty cool,” said Kelly when told about his accomplishment.
He now plans to remain consistent, in a bid to add more titles to his resume.
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