Dinwiddie gets into US Open

Jun 3 2008 by Tim Taylor, The Journal

ROBERT Dinwiddie qualified for his first major yesterday after being spurred on by a caddie who had written off his chances with only a few holes left to play.

Dinwiddie was only level par with eight holes to go at Surrey’s Walton Heath in the last round of European qualifying for next week’s US Open.

But the ex-Durham Boys champion from Barnard Castle responded with six birdies to post a five-under 67 for a 138 total, following a first round 71.

Ten days after shooting a course record 63 in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, Dinwiddie made it with a shot to spare, an eight-footer at 18 enabling him to avoid a play-off.

Dinwiddie, 25, a former American college circuit star at the University of Tennessee, will next week take his place in the field alongside his hero Tiger Woods in the first US Open to be played at Torrey Pines South.

It is a major breakthrough for Dinwiddie, who has made nine failed attempts to get into The Open Championship.

Revealing the key conversation of the day with his veteran Berkshire caddie, Cliff Picking, he said: “If I had not qualified, we would have played in the Austrian Open this week and Cliff needed to confirm his flight by 5pm. When the time came, he said to me ‘well you aren’t going to make it now’, got on his mobile on the course and confirmed the flight.

“He even had the nerve to say ‘don’t start making birdies now’.

“I said to him ‘absolutely nothing will delight me more than to prove you wrong and lose you your 300 quid for that flight at the same time’.

“I immediately hit a nine-iron stiff and it all took off from there. It really spurred me on. Six birdies later I was in the US Open and I am absolutely over the moon about it.”

The breakthrough followed a joint tenth finish in the Wales Open, which leaves Dinwiddie 76th on the European Tour Order of Merit in his rookie year and needing only around £40,000 in prize money over the remaining five months of the season to clinch his card for next year.

As an amateur, the former Walker Cup man was the only golfer in history to hold the national strokeplay championships of England, Scotland and Wales at the same time and last season – his first on the Challenge Tour – saw him become the first man to win back-to-back on that circuit in three years.

Scot Alastair Forsyth finished joint top with Ross Fisher among the 42 players who did battle for seven spots.

Also successful were Fisher’s fellow Englishmen Phillip Archer and Ross McGowan, Frenchman Thomas Levet and Swede Johan Edfors.

But amateur Gary Wolstenholme, now playing county golf for Cumbria, lost out in a play-off for the second time in three years. Paul McGinley and Rory McIlroy also did not make it.