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TEG 2 · Round 2Boavista · 17/05/2009

JON BAKER

Baker's Near-Perfect Round Ends in Carnage

A front nine of surgical precision gave way to a back nine of quadruple bogeys, but Jon Baker's card still stands as the second-best in TEG history.

For most of the afternoon, Jon Baker's second round at Boavista was historic. He finished +1 for the round. That is the second-best round in TEG history. It was also a course personal best, a gross 100, three shots better than his previous visit here.

He built it from the front. Across holes 6 to 8 he gained four shots to par. He took the outright lead in the TEG 2 Trophy at the 4th, before a bogey at the 6th let David Mullin draw level again. Baker surged back ahead. By the close he had taken the Trophy race lead from Mullin and stood three clear.

Then came the closing holes. A triple bogey at the brutal par-4 15th. A double at the 16th. Then quadruple bogeys at the 17th and the 18th, back to back. Thirteen shots surrendered over the closing stretch. A man does not often get to dismantle his own monument with the tools still warm in his hands. He held the lead regardless.

Stuart Neumann's round of gross 27 over par was also a course best for him, and ranks as the second-best gross round in TEG history. It was not the story of the day. Such is the timing of things.

JON BAKER | DAVID MULLIN

Mullin's Great Round, Wrong Ending

A near-flawless tee-to-green display couldn't survive a ragged run home, and David Mullin hands the Trophy lead back to Jon Baker with one round left.

David Mullin produced one of the finest rounds in TEG history at Boavista. A gross +28, the third-best gross round the event has ever seen. For most of the day it looked set to extend his Trophy lead and his Green Jacket advantage together. On the 5th, a bogey was enough to put him back in outright control of the Trophy on net scoring. It seemed a round destined to be remembered as simple domination.

The finish undid it. From the 16th through the 18th he went three straight holes without a net par, bleeding 10 gross shots, including a triple bogey at the 17th and the quadruple-bogey 8 at the last. Baker had already traded the net lead with him twice earlier in the round, at the 4th and the 6th. Baker's own finish was no work of art either. It simply cost him less. By the close Baker led the Trophy outright, three clear on net scoring.

Mullin still leads the Green Jacket. He also has the round of his life, and a Trophy lead somewhere behind him on the 18th tee.

WOODEN SPOON

Meller's Best Round Yet, Still Last

Henry Meller trimmed 11 shots from his own Boavista best, but with the rest of the field improving too, the Wooden Spoon gap only grew.

Henry Meller's second round at Boavista Golf & Spa Resort, in TEG 2, contained two rounds. He had finished Round 1 there at 24 over net par. He came back 11 strokes better, at 13 over. That is a genuine turnaround in form. It also produced a course personal best: a gross 102, beating his previous Boavista mark by 11 strokes, on only his second visit to the venue.

The round was not smooth throughout. Across holes 13 to 16 he went four straight without a net par and shipped 11 gross shots. A double bogey at the 13th, then triple bogeys at the 14th, the 16th and the par-4 15th. The 15th is the hardest hole on the course. The stretch cost him seven strokes net.

None of it moved him. Meller remains anchored to the bottom of the TEG 2 Wooden Spoon table, now 16 shots adrift of the next player up. He had trailed by 12 before the round began. He played the best golf of his Boavista life and lost four shots of ground doing it.

BOAVISTA

Three Eights at the Last

Boavista's closing par four turned three good rounds sour, with Jon Baker, Gregg Williams and David Mullin all carding quadruple bogeys there.

The 18th at Boavista is a par 4 and, at stroke index 5, one of the harder holes on the course. During round 2 of TEG 2 it took payment from three cards. Jon Baker, Gregg Williams and David Mullin all closed with quadruple-bogey 8s.

For Baker it was the more costly of the three. It landed on a day that still delivered a course personal best and the lead in the 2009 TEG Trophy race, three clear of Mullin, who had led before the round. Williams also set a course best for himself despite the finishing blow. Mullin's 8 arrived with no such consolation attached. He slipped from the Trophy lead he had held overnight, though he stays on top of the Green Jacket race, his advantage narrowing slightly to eight strokes.

Three quadruple bogeys on one hole in one afternoon. The 18th was the day's clear villain, and it undid good work from two of the men it struck.

Records & Personal Bests

Notable achievements: TEG 2, Round 2

Rare feats

  • Stuart Neumann runs up an 8 (+5) at the 14th — his career-worst on a par-3