Big Ben

Sean Moore

New Zealander Ben Campbell proved that age-old adage that practice makes perfect by draining a 10-foot putt for a birdie on the last hole that sealed victory at the US$2 million (HK$15.6 million) Hong Kong Open yesterday.

Campbell had arrived at the Hong Kong Golf Club Composite Course's 18th hole in a tie with Australia's Cameron Smith and Thai Phachara Khongwatmai. He faced the green after his tee shot with a decision to make: whether to play safe and lay up with an eye on par - as Smith was forced to do after finding some rough off the tee - or to go for broke and aim for birdie like Phachara.

He chose the latter and landed 10 feet from the hole.

"I hit a few putts there in the practice rounds and knew what it was doing," the 32-year-old Campbell said. "It's always nice just to pull off the shot though, doing it under pressure is another thing."

When Phachara's 25-foot putt for birdie went wide, it was all down to Campbell and he duly stroked the ball straight into the hole. That gave him a final-round, four-under-par 66 and a 19-under 261 total that clinched his first victory on the Asian Tour.

It has been a tough time for Campbell recently with back problems and operations to fix them, but they were consigned to history yesterday. "I've had chances and haven't managed to finish it off so, yeah, it's great to put that behind me now and the monkey's off the back," he said.

Australian star Smith made par at the last for a 68 that left him one shot behind Campbell on a week when the former Open Championship winner had to rely on some superb iron work to make up for a lack of accuracy off the tee.

"Pretty poor over the weekend but I hung in good," said Smith. "There's lots of positives to take away from that."

Phachara was also left to wonder what might have been after he had lost his lead - and his nerve for a moment - when he found the deep rough on the left of the 16th with his tee shot. The Thai spent around 20 minutes trying to find a way to make a shot, drew concern from his playing partners for moving some bracken, then took two shots to make his way out of the mess.

In the end Phachara had to settle for a tie for third with Canadian Richard Lee on 17-under par.

Matthew Cheung was the best finisher among the local brigade. He shot a 67 for an eight-under 272 and a share of 30th. Asian Games champion Taichi Kho shot his best round, a five-under 65, on his way to six-under 274 and a share of 53rd.

Hong Kong's Jeffrey Shen took the prize for the tournament's best amateur after a final-round 74 gave him a 285 aggregate.