The heavens opened on the eve of the tournament and dumped 50mm of rain 700 kilometres west of Sydney, the equivalent of more than 12 per cent of Cobar’s average annual rainfall.

That forced the closure of the course and the cancellation of Round 1, PGA Legends Tour players conducting chipping competitions in the backyards of their accommodation and partaking in some of Cobar’s social offerings.

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Players were able to get on course on Sunday with Pope’s 4-under 67 three strokes better than the rest of the field, Warren Legends winner Adam Henwood snaring second at 1-under 70.

For Pope, getting accustomed to sand greens before leaving Adelaide proved  to be the difference on challenging surfaces.

“I had two practice rounds on sand scrapes last week at a course in Adelaide called Two Wells so I did a bit of preparation,” said Pope.

“It was hard trying to judge the speed of the scrapes. Some of them ran on, some of them stopped but I was surprised that I won by three. I was happy with that.”

HOW THE WINNING ROUND UNFOLDED

Drawn to start from the 11th tee on the more difficult part of the golf course, Pope defied convention and burst out to an early lead.

He birdied the 368-metre par-4 12th and the 386-metre par-4 14th before making eagle at the par-5 17th.

As the rest of the field wrestled with par, Pope moved out to 5-under with birdie at the short par-4 fifth, his only blemish coming on his final hole where he made bogey.

WHAT THE WINNER SAID

“I started on the tough part of the course and I thought to myself that if I could get through those holes in maybe 2-under, that’s going to be really, really good because the course gets a lot easier after the first and second hole, which was my 10th.

“I did look at the scoreboard and got a bit nervous so I didn’t really capitalise on the easier holes but a lot of the damage for me came on the harder holes where I made some birdies that were really helpful.

“I just thought that as long as I played good golf tee to green and keep it steady around the scrapes everything will be fine.

“My short game sometimes can be a little dicey so when you’re playing on scrapes you tend not to worry about being too fine with your chipping, you just belt it and get it around the hole.

“I putted well from about 10 feet today. I holed five or six putts from eight to 10 feet which I think would have been the difference.”

LEADERBOARD RUNDOWN
1          Simon Pope                 67
2          Adam Henwood          70
T3        Tony Collier                  72
T3        Simon Jagot                 72
T3        Paul Powell                   72
T3        Brad Burns                   72
T3        Nigel Weldon               72

NEXT UP

The PGA Legends Tour heads west now for the two-day Mitchell & Brown Spalding Park Legends Open at Spalding Park Golf Club in Geraldton, played in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the Spalding Park Pro-Am.