Jasper Stubbs has become the fourth Australian and the second in two years to win the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship after a barnstorming play-off win over China's Wenyi Ding and Yunhe 'Sampson' Zheng.
Stubbs charged home with three birdies on the back nine and rode a wave of momentum after beginning the day six shots behind Zheng.
He said he "always believed it was possible."
"I kept telling myself to believe. On this golf course, anything is possible," he said.
There'll be plenty possible when Stubbs tees it up in the Masters in April and Open Championship in July, his spots courtesy of tournament organisers Augusta National and the R&A.
"It's a life-changing win," Stubbs said while surrounded by a phalanx of green jackets from Augusta National, including chairman Fred Ridley, on the practice putting green.
"I'm already thinking about getting over there for a practice round."
Stubbs had a quite brilliant back nine, making birdies at 11, 13 and 17 to finish tied at the top with Ding and Zheng.
Stubbs, a member of Peninsula-Kingswood, hooked his second shot on the par-5 17th into a bunker well left. His up and down birdie secured a sizzling 69 – only Queensland’s Quinn Croker (68) shot a lower Sunday score.
On the first play-off hole, Stubbs, clearly riding a train of adrenaline-fuelled momentum, went straight at the pin of the hardest hole on the course.
When he made his 20-foot curling left-to-right downhill putt he punched the sky, roared on by his mates.
Then Deng did the same. It was brilliant stuff. They were the only two birdies on 18 all day.
On the second attempt, with Zheng out, Stubbs' approach was pin-high but 60 feet left. Deng went in the right pot, short-siding himself. Advantage Australia.
Stubbs' monster left-right putt excited for a long way before resting on the lip. Deng's downhiller looked good all the way but just lipped out.
And all that was left to do was tap-in and get soaked in champagne.
Deng was gallant in defeat and was the narrowest lip-out from sending the play-off to a third hole.
Zheng, meanwhile, battled all day but will regret giving up a double-bogey, four bogies and a four-shot lead a day after shooting a brilliant, record-breaking 65 in stronger winds.
The 13-man Australian contingent, meanwhile, 12 off whom made the cut, all had their moments.
Max Charles made a charge – he birdied 13, he birdied 15, got to two-over, two back of Zheng. He stood in the middle of the par-5 17th with 190m to the flag and went at it.
Mistake. He landed pin-high and bounced 30 metres over the back. All week we’d been told: range-finders with the pin position were a guide only. Land it short and run it up.
Charles knew that. A Sandbelt local, a member of Kingston Heath, adrenaline got him. When he didn’t get up and down, that was his day. He finished two-over, one out of the play-off.
On his first trip to the Sandbelt, 18-year-old Billy Dowling began the day four back of Zheng in outright second but his charge ended on 14 with an unplayable lie and a drive back to the tee for a double.
And all the while big Sampson, who'd begun the day up by four, held on. The day before he’d shot 65, the greatest score an amateur had ever made on the RM composite. It broke the record set by Sir Michael Bonnallack in 1968.
“Nobody believed it possible,” Frank Nobilo observed in commentary. Kiwi Kazuma Kobori would agree; he'd equalled the 55-year-old record on Thursday.
This time around, though, with less wind but the sun baking the greens like bitumen, Zheng was tamed by Royal Melbourne not the other way around.
He followed up 65 with 75. He made a double on two and four bogies including a six on the par-5 17th with “one of the worse putts he’s hit all week,” according to Colt Knost.
Yet he followed it up with a nerve-less sand save to finish 72 holes as co-leader.
“There’s no easy way to enter the house at Royal Melbourne,” Golf Australia magazine columnist Geoff Ogilvy observed.
The golf course has been the star, extracting brilliant and variously shaped shots and great respect from a mini-galaxy of crack amateurs.
The players with range-finders using flag-sticks as targets quickly found they needed a number 20-30 metres less. RM demands putts from under the hole. You must sneak up on the pin like a robber.
Hole after hole, the composite course – 12 holes on the West, six on the East – dished up a golf hole of theatre. Mike Clayton describes Augusta National as "America’s Royal Melbourne". It’s a shame Alister MacKenzie never saw his masterpiece.
Green jackets were prominent among the final groups. The august members of Augusta and the R&A put on the tournament, flying in players, media and themselves for a tournie that features 37 countries, 120 players and offering massive carrots: spots in the Masters and Open Championship. They sell a dream.
And now 21-year-old Jasper Stubbs, once of Bairnsdale in country Victoria, who now resides few kilometres from Royal Melbourne and is a member of the Golf Australia national team is living the dream. He's on his way to Augusta.
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