Golf: Harwood holds on to secure comfortable win

Victorian Mike Harwood is making up for lost time, with a vengeance.

The 51-year-old from Melbourne easily won the inaugural $180,000 Handa NZ Senior Masters title at the Millbrook resort by four shots yesterday, continuing the outstanding form he has shown since returning to the game last year after a 15-year break.

Harwood, fresh from a course record 66 (6 under par) on Saturday, followed up with a 70 yesterday to finish on 10 under 206 for the 54 holes, beating fellow Australians Mike Clayton (210) and Wayne Grady (211), with New Zealand's Simon Owen and veteran Australian Noel Ratcliffe tied for fourth on 214.

The only others to beat par (216) over the three days were Australians Mike Ferguson and Garry Merrick, who finished on 215.

While Harwood appeared to win comfortably after starting the day three shots ahead, he admitted to being nervous throughout the final round.

"Absolutely. I'm always nervous. I wouldn't play the game if I wasn't.

"A big lead can disappear with just one shot and I really wasn't comfortable until I played the last shot over the water on the last hole," he said.

Harwood, in his younger days, was good enough to win several titles on the Australian and European tours, including the 1986 Australian PGA and the 1990 Volvo Masters, and he finished second to compatriot Ian Baker-Finch in the 1991 British Open.

But then he decided to give the game away, settling instead on being a club professional at the Kingston Links, near Melbourne.

"I did it purely and simply because I had a couple of young kids and and I wasn't enjoying being away from them so often," he said.

"Also, I'd been playing golf for quite a while and I wasn't really motivated by being in Europe any more.

It just wasn't gelling for me.

"But I always knew I'd come back and play again when I turned 50 (January 2009) and now the kids are all grown up, so I can go and do what I want to do."

And what he wants to do - is already doing - is win golf tournaments.

Last October he won the Handa Australian Senior Open at the Royal Perth course, beating Clayton and Peter Senior in a play-off.

Then, just a few weeks later, he broke through for his first win on the European Seniors Tour, beating Angel Franco and Sam Torrance in the Castellon Senior Tour Championship in Spain, which was enough to give him the Rookie of the Year title as well.

And it is the European Senior Tour which will prevent him from playing at Balmacewen later this week, as he wants to go home and work on his game to prepare for the tour's opening event at Brunei, followed a week later by a tournament in Thailand.

Harwood said he had played "really well" over the three days at Millbrook for about 47-48 holes but had been "a bit shaky" on the second nine yesterday.

After nine holes he was 11 under and five shots clear of Clayton.

But then he dropped shots on the par-3 11th after pulling his iron shot into the right bunker then bogeyed the next hole, the difficult par-4 12th after he putted from well off the green and ended up about 6m past the pin.

But the challenges he was expecting from Clayton, Grady and Owen did not materialise.

Grady, who was playing beautifully earlier, made a mess of the ninth then three-putted the 10th for a bogey (Owen birdied it), losing all momentum.

Harwood picked up the winners' cheque of $18,000 for the $100,000 main event, while in the $70,000 Harry Handa Handicap section, Owen and Ratcliffe tied for first and pocketed $9975 each.

Owen also won $4200 for finishing fourth equal in the 54-hole strokeplay section.