Golf: Pure theatre gives faithful gallery a thrilling finale

This was the stuff the gallery had come to witness, although they had a hard time picking their Gulf Harbour vantage points on the back nine as the duel between Niclas Fasth and Miles Tunnicliff intensified.

Neither player could eyeball the other until the dramatic playoff because they were in different pairings for the final round of the historic European Tour co-sanctioned event.

The only checkpoints for Fasth and Tunnicliff were the leaderboards and the volume of applause from the spectators following each group.

While Fasth, a Swede who is based in England, looked menacing in his dark sunglasses he did show more emotional flashpoints than Tunnicliff, the Englishman who calls Malaga his home.

Ryder Cup representative Fasth also showed his compassion when he had his caddy remove a bee from the 11th cup rather than damaging it with the ball or the pin.

Fasth had problems with photographers during his final nine and then resembled a dead ant when he flopped on his back kicking his legs in the air on the par-five 17th after his fairway metal speared into a bunker.

He had gambled on the par five, sensing this was the chance to use his extra length from the tee to eke out a birdie and increase the heat on the following Tunnicliff.

When his shot disappeared into the sand, Fasth could see the title slipping. When he arrived at his ball, he had even more problems.

He not only faced one of the most difficult shots in golf, a long bunker shot of about 40m to a pin tucked tight on the back of the green, but his ball was lying close to the face of the bunker.

After numerous appeals to the cameramen, Fasth exploded to under 3m and then holed the sliding left-to-right birdie putt.

When Tunnicliff missed from an even shorter distance on the same hole soon after, the Swede looked to have clinched the championship with his second round of 63.

But the gritty Tunnicliff was about to deliver several memorable episodes to send the tournament well past its scheduled finish. Earlier he had eagled the 12th from a greenside bunker - emulating Fasth's effort in round two - to briefly take the lead.

If that was dramatic, Tunnicliff's last hole in regular play was pure theatre. He birdied from 5m to send the NZ Open into a playoff, ferry commuters scuttling to enquire about revised travel timetables and TV3 into overdrive with continued cover to dent its rivals' news ratings.

The 36-year-old's nerves held again when his iron to the first playoff hole overshot the green, injured a young girl and rebounded about 40m. The unfortunate accident left Tunnicliff with a much more awkward chip but he kept his composure to knock it dead.

Back the pair went up to the 18th tee in what was becoming a broadcasting boon for the sponsors' tents lining the final fairway and the throng who had waited to discover the outcome.

Neither player looked to have an advantage, but Fasth made his tricky putt for the title while Tunnicliff took equal plaudits from the spectators, who had revelled in the duo's skills.