GOLF MISS ANSTEY WINS TITLE

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27794, 20 October 1955, Page 14

GOLF MISS ANSTEY WINS TITLE

£ * Miss Atkinson Beaten 1 Up - In Dramatic Final

♦1 ,e . a< ? at tlie sixteenth hole and holding it to “JU'ty-fiftht Miss Gillian Atkinson of Britain iost a dramatic match at Shirley yesterday to Miss Veronica Anstev, also of Britain, who added the New Zealand title to her recent success in tne Australian championship. It was an extremely close contest, ami it gave a gallery which grew m the afternoon to about 1000 as much excitement a P« tension as it could reasonably manage. For the first half ot tne morning round. Miss Ansley played magnificently, and it required all Miss Atkinson’s skill about the greens to hold her. Later m the round Miss Atkinson won the initiative, and although hard-pressed all the way, she retained a slender lead almost until the end. of the match. Though the standard of play in the afternoon was lower, scoring in match play means little enough; and in the heat of battle the bad holes were unimportant compared with the stressesand strains of the contest. Three holes from home, J i‘ss Atkinson was two up, but she collapsed, and the success which had seemed hers was lost in front of the crowded clubhouse.

Miss Anstey, a 20-year-old player Tom Birmingham, who began playing ?olf only three and a half years ago. S -P worth - v champion bv technique md temperament. She began with a jensationa] burst of scoring, and after four holes was two strokes under scratch. For the rest of the half she was making Miss Atkinson struggle for halves nearly all the time; but when she turned for home in 35. one under scratch, she was only one hole ahead. Before the morning round ended, she had surrendered the lead, ano for the first half in the afternoon she was full of errors. The same first four- holes she had covered in 14 0081 her 21: and when they started the last nine holes, she was three down.

This was a desperate position, but Miss Anstey pulled her game together wonderfully well; and soon reduced s®* de “®* to °ne. Her loss of the thirty-third hole seemed fatal and final, yet when the strain was at its greatest she responded nobly, and when she won the thirty-fourth, it was Clear that it was Miss Atkinson who was ifnder pressure, although she yy. -.1 . Mis ? Anstey played the thirty-fifths beautifully for her scratch four to square the match, and went to ner well-deserved win. Although she is.more a hitter than • swinger, Miss Anstey is very nearly the cmfrptete golfer. At her best vesmagnificent: and while 8k re kept to the fairway T v. an *,3^ r Opponent, her approaching, chipping ana putting were also very good indeed. Before making a shot •he would finger her clubs carefully, hke a. surgeon with a tray of instotoyaits, aid almost always make th®. chqice take the correct action. She fell into a grievous succession of- errors in the afternoon—she compared with her mornmgjKJK only player rould fight back so well, -and take charge the moment came, late as it was. For .-.Miss ■ Atkinson, a comparative veteran of 22. there was much more than the usual sympathy accorded a gallant aD< * gallant she was. She no him. by expression of the strain such a final/inevitably imposed upon her. Completely composed wn«ru m trouble, she was a tne -game went, the more errors she made. Her four halves were 37. 39. 42 and 44. Miss Anstey’s were 35. 41. 46 and 38. Although she plays all her shots with a delightful ease, Miss Atkinson’s club-head wandered noticeably in her pack-swing and 1 *lhis. allied perhaps with an attempt to match Miss Anstey for distance, often took her into rough and bunker. From there she made some remarkable recoveries, but she could not so persistently get off the line without paying the penalty. For a very long time, her incredibly sure touch with her short approaches and putts—-she had 15 one-putt greens—first kept her within reach of Miss Anstev. then gave her the lead which she did not yield until hours later. It must have been most disapoointing to lead for so long only to lose, but she was beaten by a very fine golfer, just a little better all-round player than herself. Diverse Distractions The crowd at Shirley enjoyed every moment of the match, although the weather for most of the day was cold. For the players, there were many distractions. not all of them when shots were actually being played. At the fourth. . Miss Atkinson was playing a very difficult shot when a Post Office van roared along the road a few yards below her. Car horns sounded, there was gunfire some choral work from nearby fowl runs, and all the canine excitement of the fox hunt. Somewhere about, a carpenter hammered industriously and noisily, children clambered, shrilling, in a tree and at the twenty-fifth hole, a herd of cattle, in line abreast, stared stonily through a fence at the play a few yards away and mooed plaintively as the players were lining up their putts. Plants roared across the sky and at the seventh hole, while Miss Atkinson was putting, a hare popped out of a hedge, sat up and watched the shot, wrinkled Its nose, and darted off again. The first two holes set the pattern of the early play. Miss Anstey was on the green both times for two, and Miss Atkinson, with a chip at the first and an approach putt 75 feet long, at least at the second, held her to halve in four. Then Miss Anstey scored two successive birdies, and two wins. They then halved three holes. Miss Atkinson putting superbly, and when Miss Anstey missed a short putt at the eighth and dropped her first stroke. Miss Atkinson won her first hole. It was a brief respite, for she lost the tenth after another straying second. But Mt the twelfth, she played a wonderfully controlled second to four or five feet of the hole and Miss Anstey. three-putting, was left only one ahead. Then Miss Atkinson put her tee shot six feet from the pin at the short thirteenth and squared the match with her birdie. ~ Miss Atkinson took the lead for the first time at the sixteenth, after Miss Anstey had hooked a three-iron and they came in with Miss Atkinson still one ahead. Before the afternoon round Miss Anstey busied herself on the putting green.

Deterioration in Play In the first nine holes of the afterB°p n . round there was a sharp deterioration in the players’ judgment and execution. Miss Anstey drove into the rough at the nineteenth and kF* J m ? re to reach the green; they halved the scratch four twentieth m six. and Miss Atkinson, bunkered at the twenty-first, lost it to resume her lead of only one. Miss Atkinson's carefully-planned campaign at the twenty-fifth gave her a win with a scratch five, Miss Anstey being bunkered and then going through the green with her fourth. Miss Anstey had a chance of winning the twentysixth. but missed a putt of five feet and lost the twenty-seventh, to be three down, in extraordinary circumstances Miss Atkinson's tee abet at this short bole was in xbunker, and although she got out. very short, and her approach left het ■ toot or so.from the hole. Miss Anetey.-with a reesonJ?** f< £ a w * n - was addressing the ball when it moved, although she had not touched it, and Miss Anstey drew of the ™npbe (Mrs R. S. Fullerton-Smith) to the incident, which cortMiss Anstey a stroke. She then understandably, to hole her EKSP Prospective win became a a deficit of three with nine battle was really joined. IJ recovered the tientv.

[ eighth through a superb chip after both had been at fault, and the next .four were all halved. Miss Atkinson’s putter losing none of its magic. What seemed like the final break came at i the short thirty-third, when Miss i Atkinson, after going through the ; green, chipped back beautifully and i Miss Anstey, bunkered, took a four. Miss Anstey’s Recovery ! The swing towards Miss Anstey was sudden. At the long thirty-fourth, Miss ■ Atkinson s second from the rough was i trapped by the creek and had to be ?P la from a steep bank, but Miss ; Anstey played three strong shots. ; straight and true into the wind, and w J th a scra tch five. At the thirtyfifth. they both drove well, but Miss Anstey’s long second which left her pin high beside the green, made demands to which Miss Atkinson could not fully respond. She was short of the gF®®u», an d for her chip was about eight feet to the left of the hole. She was down in five and Miss Anstey sank one of three feet for her four. It was the first time she had been square since the fifteenth. At the last hole. Miss Atkinson sliced !??■ ? ri \ e and “l ad ,. a li S ht in the rough from which sne topped her second. Finally, she badly cut her aoU l *? a bunker. She came out and all but sank a putt of 25 feet, but Miss Anstey had the situation well in nand, and her approach putt gave her *°„ ur ’ , ln ordinary circums rmf es wou ld have been easy competent Manawatu player, 2r rs - *T- Mangan, who was in a New land tournament for her first time, added another success to her foursomes as, (Cl s?fe h) ' 2 and in the

Championship (36 holes).—Miss V. Anstey Miss G - _. i z «»land Plate i J * (Manawatu) 2and 1 S B ‘ Murray (Chr Waddell Rose Bowl *1- Peters (Masterton) beat Miss N. Beverley (Matamata), at the twenty-first. Waddell night , F jnal. —Mrs G. Chapman (Napier) beat Mrs M. Currey (Kaiapoi), 3 and