Oliver Goss runner-up in US amateur golf title to England's Matt Fitzpatrick

Goss hits out in the dawn
PHOTO: West Australian Oliver Goss hits an approach shot. (Michael Dodge: Getty Images)
MAP: WA
Western Australian golfer Oliver Goss has finished runner-up in the US amateur championship to England's Matt Fitzpatrick in Massachusetts.

Goss was bidding to become the third Australian to win the US amateur title which Tiger Woods won three times before turning professional.

Fitzpatrick won 4 and 3 in the final over 19-year-old Goss who was hoping to join Nick Flanagan and three-times winner Walter J.Travis as US amateur champions.

After the morning round Goss had trailed by one hole but he squared the match on the first hole of afternoon play when Fitzpatrick was unable to convert a seven-foot par putt.

Fitzpatrick, who is number two in the world amateur golf rankings, won the next two holes then holes 32 and 33, to wrap up the championship.

Goss last year reached the quarter-finals of the US Amateur at Cherry Hills Country Club near Denver.

He made this year's final with a win over fellow Western Australian Brady Watt in the semi-final.

Watt went on to caddy for Goss in the final.

Both Goss and Fitzpatrick will earn a spot in next year's US Open and a likely invitation to the US Masters as a result of making the final.

Goss's golfing career has gone from strength to strength in the last 12 months.

Last year at the Perth International he was the highest finishing amateur.

He then went onto win the Western Australian Open after he beat Brady Watt in the sudden-death playoff.

He became the first amateur since Stephen Leaney in 1991 to win the championship and the first since Danny Lee in 2009, to win a PGA Tour of Australasia tournament.

Two weeks later, Goss was in the Australian Masters on a sponsor's invitation and was grouped with countryman Adam Scott and 2010 US Open champion Graeme McDowell.