The 2017 Maulesbank Trophy winner was crowned on Saturday as Stephen Jenkins of The Shire GC beat Prashantha Nagaraja of Hadley Wood 2&1 on the Championship Course.
Both men were in fine form throughout the tournament – Jenkins missed out on the cut for the Tassie by just one shot.
Jenkins had a more straightforward opening round of matchplay with a 7&6 win over Nick Stokes while Nagaraja won 1UP against Jason Dolman. In the 2nd Round, however, it was a different story as Nagaraja beat Hollis Boisson 6&5 while Jenkins beat James Quinn, also of The Shire, 2&1.
In the 3rd Round Jenkins beat Peter Whittaker 4&3 and Nagaraja was 1UP versus Alan Rimmer of San Roque. There were no problems for either player in the quarter-finals as both of their matches finished after the 13th hole with Nagaraja defeating Peter Millett of Thorndon park 6&5 and Stephen Cuthbert from Crewe GC was beaten 7&5 by Jenkins.
In the semi-finals Jenkins overcame Jonas Linden 3&2 while Nagaraja won 5&4 against Jim Murphy of Crow Wood.
In what turned out to be a final fit to bring an end to the 2017 Craw’s Nest Tassie week, it was Jenkins who got off to a flying start, going 4UP over the front nine.
However, Nagaraja wasn’t going to go down that easy and reduced Jenkins’ lead to just 1UP over the middle section of the course.
But as Jenkins went 2UP again as they approached the final two holes, Nagaraja found the Barry Burn off the tee on the 17th hole to all but extinguish his chances of rescuing the match.
On the 17th green, Nagaraja conceded in sportsman-like fashion to give Jenkins the victory.