Brown win a perfect start to Asian tour campaign

Wellington professional Mark Brown high tailed it out of town soon after his blistering round of 65 at the Masterton Golf Club's Lansdowne course won him the major spoils at the $15,000 ING Masterton-Eketahuna pro-am golf tournament at the weekend.
Brown, who was two shots off the pace set by Canterbury's Tony Christie after the first round at Eketahuna, had to dash to Wellington airport to catch a flight to India where he will line up in the first event on the Asian tour for 2008, the US$2,500,000 Indian Masters ,in Delhi.
His 67 at Eketahuna and 65 (eight under par) at Masterton gave Brown a 36-hole total of 132, 12 under par and two shots to the good of Christie.who followed his six-under- par 65 at Eketahuna with a 69 at Masterton to finish on 134.
Third on 136 (67 and 69) was Nelson's Riki Borell with Richard Anderson and Bradley Heaven sharing fourth place on 137. Anderson had rounds of 69 and 68 and Heaven 68 and 69.
In ninth equal place was Masterton's favourite golfing son, Sir Bob Charles, who was two under par with both his 69 at Eketahuna and his 71 at Lansdowne, the course where he developed his game as a youngster.
For Mark Brown his victory was the continuation of a professional career which has brought mixed fortunes but which has now seen seen the 32-year-old improve his official world ranking climb to a career high 321
Brown topped the qualifying tourney for the Australasian tour when he first turned pro but despite occasional successes in places like Fiji and Canada he struggled to make ends meet and four years ago he gave up chasing glory and took a job as junior development officer for the Wellington Golf Association.
But with encouragement from coach Mal Tongue, Brown decided at the end of 2006 to have another shot at tournament golf and he qualified for the Asian tour, receiving a huge confidence boost last February when he finished sixth equal in the NZPGA tourney at Clearwater.
From there came good finishes in Indonesia, India. Brunei and Korea and he was eighth in the Singapore Open, beating home names like Mickelson, Els and O'Hearn.
Brown ended that season with a tie for fourth at the Volvo Masters of Asia, a result which took his Asian earnings to US$191,136 and placed him 15th on their order of merit.
Earlier, Brown had made a decent name for himself in the amateur ranks with a fourth placing on the individual list at the Eisenhower trophy tourney in 1994 being particularly notable.
One shot behind him then was a Stanford University student by the name of Tiger Woods.
A total of 35 professionals contested the Masterton-Eketahuna pro-am, the opening event on the NZPGA pro-am circuit for this year. Leading scores were:-
Mark Brown 67-65-132, Tony Christie 65-69-134, Riki Borell 67-69-136, Richard Anderson 69-68-137, Brad Heaven 68-69-137, Steven Han 71-67-138, Gareth Paddison 67-72-139, Dominic Barson 70-69-139, Sir Bob Charles 69-71-140, Josh Geary 71-69-140, Andrew Searle 69-71-140, Marcus Wheelhouse 69-71-140, Blair Shaw 70-71-141, Glen Millin 69-72-141, Mark Bow 71-70-141, Andrew Gurney
70-72-142, Richard Best 71-71-141, Douglas Holloway 70-72-142, Bryce Mawhinney 73-70-143, Craig Owen 68-75-143, Alex Tait 71-72-143, James Napier 71-73-144, Joung Lee 69-75-144, James Beston 77-67-144, Michael Hendry 72-72-144, James Mcisaac 71-74-145, John Reid 72-73-145, Alistair Sidford 74-71-145.