C. W. Caldwell Beats N.Z. Amateur Champion

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27973, 21 May 1956, Page 12

C. W. Caldwell Beats N.Z. Amateur Champion

“The Press’* Special Service

NEW PLYMOUTH, May 20. Canterbury’s performance in finishing behind Wellington, Hawke’s Bay and Taranaki in the Freyberg Rose Bowl inter-association golf tournament at New Plymouth was better than it appears. Canterbury, one of the youngest teams—the average age of the six is 26—emerged as the province with the best prospects for the luture. Its No. 1 player, the modest C. W. Caldwell, proved himself in top class, and the golf played by R. E. Clements was worthy of his golfing father. The other members of the team were fairly even. Caldwell said that team members could have been switched into any order with the same result.

The assessment of Canterbury’s performance by comparison with others must be related to the teams met. Canterbury, by the luck of the draw played only one team that could be considered easy. Wellington, Hawke’s Bay and Taranaki all had at least two of the weaker teams on their programmes. On top of that Hawke’s Bay was soundly beaten by Canterbury yesterday. It was here that Caldwell had his greatest success when he gave S. G. Jones, the amateur champion, his only defeat of the tournament before the biggest gallery, up to that stage. Easy Swing

Caldwell’s beautifully easy swing gave him perfectly controlled shots, with one exception straight all the way to the greens where he was particularly accurate. Previously he had given the impression that his weakness was in putting.

Both players were on their game very early with four birdies in three consecutive holes. The match fluctuated but at the end of the first nine Jones was 2 up. At the eighth hole Caldwell put his drive into the rough and missed a three-foot putt—about his only blemish on the greens during the round.

The second nine had barely started before there was a prime example of Jones’s ability to meet most contingencies. He drove to within two feet of a fence and played a left-

handed shot with a right-handed wedge. He made the green but then three-putted. By the thirteenth, where Jones duffed a drive and three-putted, Caldwell, playing remarkably sound golf, had squared the game. After the sixteenth they were still all square. It was on the seventeenth, won by Caldwell with a five to a six, that the game was won and lost. Jones hooked his second and was short with his third. Afternoon Round Caldwell’s figures were about two over scratch. His golf in the afternoon was just as good against T. J. Jaffery, a New Zealand representative, and a difficult opponent on his home course, who was the only unbeaten No. 1 of the tournament. It was even to the turn. Both were out in 36 and the game was all square Caldwell had two putting lapses in the second nine and Jeffery lost a ball, leaving him 1 up with two to play, but Caldwell squared the game at the seventeenth and they halved the last for approximate rounds of 75 each. The match drew the biggest crowd of the whole tournament. Clements had a really good day, hitting all his shots well. His golf improved after he found that a low. controlled. rising approach was safer in the wind than a lofted ball played with an iron of the correct number for the distance. Canterbury’s chance of finishing equal second depended on the last man in, P. Lewis. A win for him would have meant the defeat of Taranaki, but Lewis, who was playing his last game for Canterbury, suffered his biggest defeat of the tournament. He was beaten by P. Powell, a young olayer, who had not had a win until then. Lewis seemed as if he was going a little stale after the first two exacting days.

R. D. Kearns finished better than he had started. He had a good win over M ' Dorree n in the morning and in the afternoon he took J. Holden a former amateur champion, to the last green.