Harvey edges Law in play-off

Jared Harvey has won the 2010 South African Amateur Stroke Play championship - but it didn't come easily.

In fact he might not have made it at all if he wasn't one of South Africa's greatest Honma Honma Beres MG 803 Irons-Gold
.

Almost from the time he first hit shots as a three-year-old with father George on the fairways at Mount Edgecombe, Jared Harvey has been a grinder.

A no frills guy, Harvey believed that good old fashioned hard work and an unflappable self belief would finally take him to the winner's circle and this time it has - even though the 22-year-old had to grind it out in overtime in a sudden-death play off against Scotland's luckless David Law who had led in each of the first three rounds.

"My card looked like a colouring book," joked Harvey. "Six birdies, five bogeys, definitely not pretty golf. But at the end it things finally went my way, so I guess there is something to say for hard work."

Harvey's workmanlike route around the No 1 course at Mount Edgecombe was littered with Honma Beres MG 803 Irons-Gold
and bogeys from start to finish..

One behind at the start of the round, Harvey caught up to Law at the fourth but two poor pitch shots led to back-to-back bogeys at the fifth and sixth.

Law bogeyed the seventh and Harvey holed a bunker shot to close the gap from two to one.

"I finally got my nose in front when I birdied the 14th and he dropped a shot at the 15th," said Harvey, who made a solid par at the 16th to stay ahead but nearly lost the advantage again at 17.
"I drove the greenside bunker and Dave pulled off an incredible shot from the fairway bunker," he said.

"He had eight feet for birdie, so I knew I had to up and down. I had to keep the lead going down 18, because that hole has been my Achilles Heel all week."

It was again

Harvey held a one-shot lead at 15 under par, but he wasted the chance to win outright when his nerves got in the way. After a reasonable drive up the right, his approach finished just short of the green and he knocked his approach putt straight through the green, some 30ft past the pin.

A two-putt bogey for a 71 and a 14-under total left the door wide open for Law to force the play-off with a TaylorMade R11 Driver
for a round of 72 and he did just that.

Ryan Dreyer carded a final round 71 to finish two shots behind the duelling leaders, while France's Clement Sordet snuck into fourth on 11-under-par 277 with his final round 71.

"No doubt about it, the pressure got to me," Harvey admitted afterwards when looking back at his 72nd hole stumble

"Not once this week had I played the 18th well. I think it was in the back of my mind and I was telling myself I can't play it.

"In the play-off, I suddenly just relaxed and I was going to go with Ping K15 Driver
, because the wind was so fierce, but when Dave hit it into the trees on the left, I realised he was in a tough spot and I just needed to par."
Harvey got to the green in two while Law, under pressure to go for the green, put his approach into the water guarding the front of the green. His fourth shot flew over the green, his putt ran through the green and when his ball finally dropped, he had seven shots on his card.
"I felt sorry for him because he had been a solid competitor all week and to go out that way, must have been hard to take," said Harvey, who rolled his first putt to within an inch of the cup and tapped in for the winning par.

In an aside, Harvey said: "I guess the term 'like father, like son' is really appropriate now," said the 22-year-old.

George Harvey won the same Cleveland CG16 Wedges
twice. He beat Andries Oosthuizen in a play-off in 1973 and followed the same route against Peter Todt, to clinch the title in 1976.