up to 30 knots, Doug Clark yesterday clinched his first Mid Ocean Club Men's Invitation title, defeating his close friend Dick Horne on the first hole of sudden death.

Clark, from North Carolina, and Horne, from South Carolina, had ended all square in the championship flight final after Clark holed a 10 foot putt at the 18th to force the play-off.

And with the wind whipping across the course, the players then went to Mid Ocean's first to decide the title.

Clark two putted from 20 feet to secure his par, leaving Horne an eight footer to stay alive. But he pushed the putt wide.

"It was a very good match,'' said Clark, who won the Amateur back in 1991.

"It could have gone either way.'' "I was three down after 12, but my parents came in on a flight in the afternoon and began watching at the 13th, and I began to play better.'' Clark won the 13th, then reduced the deficit to one when Horne hit a bad drive at 16, and after both bogeyed 17 it came down to the last.

"I was three-up but we've been friends for 15 years and I knew he wouldn't give up,'' said Horne, a three-time Amateur champion in 1985, '86 and '87.

"The wind really changed the complexion of the golf course today. It made golf very difficult. But I raise my glass to Doug, he played very well.'' Earlier in the day Horne had extinguished hopes of a local victory with an emphatic seven and six semi-final defeat of Bermuda's Ricky Cox -- hardly the way in which Cox had hoped to celebrate his birthday.

Clark, meanwhile, got past Paul Evans three and two in the other semi-final.

In a senior championship flight final, as closely contested as the junior final, Charles Hartnett lost the title he won a year ago to fellow Marylander Ted Kenerson in a match that also went to the 19th.

Full final results -- see Scoreboard Doug Clark