YOUNG IN FINAL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 71, 25 March 1940, Page 8

YOUNG IN FINAL.

PROVINCIAL GOLF. Hamilton Opponent — Carr's Narrow Defeat. A newcomer to Auckland golf, B. Burgess, of Hamilton, reached the final 01 the provincial championship this morning at Titirangi, with the home club's star player, J. 11. Young. The visitor found his opponent in the semi-final, H. D. Brinsden, quite off his game on the greens, and he won convincingly, 3 and 2. In the other match it was a different story, Young having a long and hard struggle to defeat another or his club members, R. B. Carr, at the eighteenth. Little was known of Burgess before he came- up for the tournament with a handicap of one. As a matter of fact he has played little ■ competitive golf outside Hamilton, which he joined in 1936 after caddying at the club. Then for two years he did not play and when he came back to the game last year he made rapid strides, reducing from a 9 to a 1 handicap. A sturdy yoiith of 19 with good golfing hands, he played his shots well to the jvreen and putted with courage. Out in j7, he had given Brinsden (unhappy on the greens) little respite and was 3 up. He won three holes, the first, the eighth and ninth, all in fours. Brins3en holed his first useful putt at the tenth, about five feet, and he needed it for a half after his opponent had sunk one double the length. Brinsden, had he been in putting mood, would have won "The Wrecker" after an excellent third ! shot, but missed a four-footer. Still 3 down, Brinsden was not given a chance to pull the match out of the fire and was beaten at the sixteenth, 3 and 2. Two Down At Turn. Lack of confidence on the greens in the first half of his match with Carr saw Young in danger of defeat. He made a mistake on the first green, after CaiT had been out of bounds, and by the time the eighth was reached was 2 down. It should have been one more if Carr had not thrown the sixth hole away. There he was about five yards from the pin, just off the green. Instead of using a putter lie chipped the shot, ran three feet past and missed a simple putt. This allowed Young to win it in 4. Young was outplayed at the eighth and became 2 down; he should have got the ninth back, but three- putted. Young won the eleventh with a sound 6ft putt, took the next with the aid of a lucky second shot which was hit on the head and ran to the green, and was made a present of the thirteenth. There Carr was in the rough skirting the out of bounds, and took two to recovei, eventually holing a 7. Young had his troubles, too, when he topped hie second into the gully, but a 6 was good enough to win. Luck did not take Young past his •hoodoo hole^ —the fourteenth. He has not had the three there during the tourney, and this morning required a 5, two shots in the bunker. Carr, also in the bunker, won it in 4, and again they were square. • For the next four holes it was a keen duel. Young got into the lead with a well played fifteenth, did well to halve the sixteenth, where he was outplayed to the green, and finally made a spectacular recovery from under a tree at the seventeenth to reach the green with an iron. Carr replied well by getting down in two from outside the preen. Carr's only chance at the eighteenth was to hole a long putt for a 3, and when he failed Young nearly holed his, the half in 4 leaving him 1 up. In the handicap event A. N. Young, a brother of J. H., played an excellent round off a 7 handicap to finish 2 up on bogey and win the concurrent competition. He defeated B. T. Laycock (2), 3 and 2. In the other semi-fh/al J. Grierson (10) beat F. Aldred, 2 and 1.