Blackwell Beats the Odds

Another bolter from the unglamorous end of the field has stepped up to take the one title that everyone hungers, yet so few get to dine on. Canterbury-based amateur Dean Murray Blackwell won his first ever Johnny Woodpecker Memorial Golf Classic in Greymouth on the last weekend of April. Starting from a ranking of 20 in a field of 22 Blackwell was never even mentioned in any of the pre-event media coverage.

Yet somehow in the footsteps of other outsiders such as Dean “Shaw boy” Shaw and John “Oooooooooooooooossssssss” Loveridge, Dean “Blackass” Blackwell seemed to come from nowhere and catch all the pundits napping.

Picking up a mammoth 46 stable ford points on the first day, Black had issued the challenge. If anyone was going to catch him on the heavy pressure of the second day, they would have to scorch the Greymouth course and Black would need to have a Ross-like collapse.

“I’m convinced it comes to down to isolating the core rhomboid muscles in the upper back and when I saw the drooping shoulders of my opponents on the Saturday morning I knew it was pretty much mine to lose,” reasoned the 2005 champion.

Lose it he did not, in an almost effortless display of average golf, the former sheep tosser kept his head while those around him smoked theirs. There was some hard charging on the first night of the double header but unfortunately most of that could not be translated onto the course.

The first day shakedown had opened a gap and the only players within cooee were Woodleyand the two foreign wildcards, Bonning and Horsely. Predictably the Australians folded like one of Rolly’s suits and it was left to Woodley to mount any kind of challenge in the run home.

Woodley applied plenty of his famous confidence tinkering and around the 13th hole had drawn to within one stable ford point of the recovering rheumatic. A sliced tee shot by Woodley fluked to within 3 feet of the par 3 14th that saw him needing to sink the put to take the lead for the first time.

Blackwell knew however that Woodley had a case of the Ross Syndrome and the mere thought sent Woodley into a panic attack and he 4 putted, thankful for the brown paper bag in Horse’s golf bag. The mind games only served to spark the opinionated Blackass and Woodley’s “cheeky” demons appeared from nowhere combining to see the small-hitting southerner home.

Clapped into the finishing hole by a handsome horseshoe of hung over heads, Dean was heard to make the prophetic statement of a truly humble champion: “I don’t know what you all you idiots are complaining about, the courses were just damn easy”. It was that moment when all those around the 18th knew they were in the presence of true  JWMGC champion.

Scorecard