Photo by Kasey Hine/NAPGT :: Story by Matt Byrne

ATKINSON, NH (June 8, 2007) – Andrew Svoboda, who began round three of the 2007 Atkinson Open three shots back from the lead, shot 66 in the final round of play to clinch the win after a one hole playoff with Matthew Donovan.

“I knew if I shot 67, 66, I’d be in really good position,” Svoboda said as he waited nervously for the final group to post their scores. “I don’t know how the guys are playing out there, but you never know. You just wait and see, and hope everything comes through,” he said.

As the leader in the clubhouse at ten under par with all but one group to finish, he had a lot to be curious about; namely, Matthew Donovan.

Donovan, grinding through the back nine, birdied the sixteenth to tie the lead.

With approximately 85 yards to the pin in the last hole of regulation play, Donovan paced the yardage twice.

He took aim at the deep-left pin position and fired right at the stick, but landed in the rough just off the front of the green. “ … And I came up about twelve yards short,” he said later.

Donovan’s chip also came up short, leaving nearly twelve feet of finely-manicured bent grass between him and an impatient Andrew Svoboda back by the scorer’s tent. Sink it, and Donovan would force a playoff.

A few seconds later, Donovan was shaking hands to the applause of the crowd that gazed down from the Atkinson clubhouse porch, but no one moved. The competition was just getting started.

“I made a good putt just to get in the playoff, really,” Donovan said of his last stroke.

In minutes, rules officials would be shuttling both players back to the tee. The harder work was ahead.

Donovan teed off first and landed squarely in the fairway, spitting distance from the spot from which he had minutes ago came up short. Again he stood poised between the two markers he did not trust.

Svoboda’s drive went right, barreling down the cart path for an extra fifty yards. His ball finally stopped in the rough short of the water, leaving him an ideal angle and about 35 yards of green with which to work.

Approaching his second shot, Svoboda didn’t realize his ball made it past the end of the fairway. “It must have hit the path, and rolled all the way up there,” he said.

Donovan, trying to learn from his earlier yardage miscalculation, tossed his second shot long and missed the green- and his opportunity to score- by no more than a foot. “If it lands on the green, it’s spinning back a little bit,” Donovan said. “That chip shot I had was absolutely buried,” he said.

Svoboda, seeing his opportunity, smoothly lobbed one close. “I had a perfect shot, [it was] a good angle to the pin,” Svoboda said. “I was just trying to get it ten feet, and it took a big hop and I had a three-footer,” he said.

After Svoboda made the short putt for the win, Donovan lamented. “I played well, but Andrew played great,” the runner-up said. “He was six under today, and made birdie in the play off. What can you do,” he said.

Svoboda, who received the trophy from tour president Brian Hebb, said the NAPGT schedule was a nice change of pace.

“I’ve been playing on the Hooters Tour all year, and I really love it up here. This is a great tour, great courses, and great people who run it, so I really love coming up here to play for a couple months,” Svoboda said. “Up here you’ve got nice bent greens to putt, so it’s good for your confidence, and you can make some putts up here,” he said.