After shooting a 69 to take a six-hole lead over the first 18 of the 36-hole match-play final on Sunday morning, Knoop didn’t let up when they took the course to finish things off.
Not at all.
In the end, he’d card a six-under 65 in round two, defeating Albert 9-and-7 to claim his second-straight men’s championship.
“Coming in, I’d played with Mark before a few times and I know he doesn’t really get himself into too much trouble,” Knoop said. “So I knew that I was going to have to limit my bogeys if I was going to have a chance. Luckily I was able to make enough birdies to offset his pars and it worked out well… Being up six, I knew I could just run him out of holes as long as I didn’t make any dumb mistakes.”
Match play being what it is, Knoop was also able to take a few more chances at times, something that evidently worked in his favour.
“I had three bogeys in the first 18 we played, I knew if I could just get less in the second 18 I was going to be okay, but it also does free you up a little bit,” Knoop said. “So you can go for a few more pins, hit a good drive and aim on the right side of the flag and be aggressive. You still want to try and make birdies and get it close and put even more pressure.”
Albert was under no illusions about what it was going to take to have a chance of winning with Knoop shooting as well as he was.
“Full credit for the win, it would take a miracle to try and keep pace with that kind of play… he’s just that good,” lauded Albert, himself a multiple-time club champion. “He hits it long, he hits straight, he’s on all the par fives in two. There are holes you just have to concede to him because of his length and ability. It was one of those days where you’d have to play out of your mind to keep up with him.”
Thing is, the second 18 of the final wasn’t even Knoop’s best round of the tournament.
That came in his quarter-final bout, where he carded a 63 to defeat Shawn Loney -- a showing that came after Knoop had been pushed all the way to the final hole to defeat Mark Bevan in his opening match.
The semifinal was a rematch of last year’s title game, with Knoop taking a 4-and-2 win over Jordan Banilevic.
