GOLF Canterbury Men Twice Triumph

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29893, 6 August 1962, Page 6

GOLF Canterbury Men Twice Triumph

Unspectacular, often unconvincing, but always interesting golf was provided in the t exhibition matches during the week-end by J three members of the New Zealand team for • the world amateur championship, and the ; team's reserve. K. C. Murray and I. S. Harvey, who • contributed so much to Canterbury’s Frey- • berg Rose Bowl success this season, twice J beat R. R. Newdick (Auckland) and S. G. • Jones (Hawke’s Bay). At Waitikiri they • won. 3 and 2, and at Shirley yesterday they finish one hole ahead. Both games were on » a four-ball best-ball basis.

J If there was much to ad- » jnire in the golf at various J stages, it bad its disappointt ments too. In warm sunshine, J there was a gallery of only J about 3CO at Waitikiri; a o crowd of some 450 braved • the bitingly cold weather at , Shirley yesterday, but the at. • tendances were very much J below those on a similar ocl casion two years ago. • Spectators accustomed to ; reading of sub-70 rounds • must have been disappointJ ed. On neither day was any • one player able to match the • card, the northerners, at J Waitikiri suffering the in- • dignity of 80s. The conditions J were not easy on either day. « but the players had only J themselves to blame, in the , main. 1 Yesterday all four were • consistently short with their i approaches and chips, just as • consistently short with their I first putts; the greens were ■ heavy, bu* some better asJ sessment of them might have • been expected after a few ’ holes had been played. ■ Murray Played Best • Murrav was the most • ful of the four, and was guilty J of timidity less frequently than , the others He is now so solid j a golfer that even when below i his best be is not playing at all . badly. If a suggestion of «. wobble seems to have returned to the top of his swing, he was on the fairways more consistently than the other three, although at the end of yesterday’s round he produced quite violent hooks at each of the last three holes. But Murray has always been courageous in adversity and the four-iron he played from the rough at the seventeenth at Shirley was a memorable shot: it left him a putt of under three feet He missed it. Newdick. who seems to have flattened his swing quite markedly started well at Waitikiri. but perhaps because of the trees all about, he began stopping his pivot on the back swing, and brought off a succession of ill-favoured pushes which cost him many strokes. At the sixth and seventh holes he had astonishing sevens; the seventh hole wAs. in fact, a miserable affair all round. The hole, of 375 yards, has a treacherously sloping green The foursome shared the 12 putts taken there, evenly Yesterday Newdick was much more himself—sound straight, safe. He was one under scratch until he caught the ditch at Shirley’s fourteenth hole, where he had a two-over, and he dropped strokes at the next two as well Abbreviated swing •Tones, with a swing even further abbreviated' than it was at the national championships, made some fearful errors at Waitikiri with a seven at the fourth hole, one of the three he three-putted on the outward halt, He was again inaccurate yesterday but struggled to comparative respectability Only in the closing stage; was he in anv real touch. The best hitter of the ball, the most attractive swinger, was clearly Harvev who had the best round at Waitikiri. and would have been closer to the others at Shirley had he had any sort of luck with his putts Four times he hit the hole, only for the ball to jump and sit beside it.

At Wattikirt the Canterbury, pair were fairly firmly on top most of the way. but never really in command. Harvey ahnost chipped in for a birdie at the first and at the short third Murray's six-iron bit so well that from the point of pitching—four feet from the pin—it retreated a further four feet He holed the pltt for the birdie. Newdick squared the game with a regulation four at the next hole, but then the North Islanders were seized with ineptitude. the pair taking a total of 25 strokes for two plain-Jane bogey-four holes Two up with three to play. Harvey ended the match with a magnificent Iron at the sixteenth, a lovely hit which sent the ball straight to the pin and left him a putt of little more than a foot. Murray improved his figures with an eagle three at the seventeenth Harvey finished with 73. one over scratch. Murray with 75. Jones and Newdick each with 80 Three Birdies At Shirlev yesterday Murray again put his side ahead with a birdie at the short third hole At the new fifth hole, Newdick sank a oretty. curling 25-footer for a birdie, but Jones had chipped dead for his-birdie, and Murray also had one. Newdick. from the bottom of the sixth green, ran a remarkable putt uphill to sit beside the cup—a putt of fully 90 feet. The fours he and Jones had won the hole comfortably. Murray played the 434-yard eighth perfectly for a birdie four and the hole, to put the Canterbury pair ahead again, but he had a dreadful lie in a bunker at the ninth, and when Harvey three-putted the game was square After the turn there was hardly any more rain, but the wind rose icily as they went along with some undistinguished halves. At the fifteenth Newdick was woefully short off the tee. short with his pitch. Jones three-putted. Murray won with a ‘hree. Harvey played two of the day's best shots at the sixteenth His woods took him to withi., 80 yards of the green at this 547-yard hole, but he could do no better than Murray, whose five was achieved after a hooked drive and a second which, hitting trees, set off for the fourteenth fairway. The game seemed over when Murray played his superb second at the seventeenth, but this. too. was halved and at the last Newdick made a brave attempt to save the match with a 15-footer Murray’s score was 75. Newdick and Jones were each 76. Harvey 79, TEMPLETON CUP . FINAL Hanmer gained its first win in the Templeton Cup competition for clubs in the North Canterbury area. Hanmer beat Amberley in an inter-zone play-off at Kalapoi yesterday, winning 5 games to 3 Detailed scores. Hanmer names first, are:— T. Read halved with B Russell: K. C. Ensor beat W. Boyce. 2 up; T. C. Maling lost to I. B. Stocks, 4 and 3; F. P. Farrow halved with T Retallick: J. F. Garner beat D. S. Gardiner. 1 up; A. C. Cossar lost to R. Parsons. 2 down: L. E Carter beat F. Hobbs. 7 and 6; J. S. Hepburn beat D Richards. 4 and 3.

Tai Tapu Open Tourney Results of the Tai Tapu Golf Club's mixed open tou. nament he’d yesterday were Nine Holes.—Four-ball, bestball bogey: M. Lohrey and Mrs Wiggs, all square: E Jones and V Madden, all square: J. Mil’s and J Woods, all square Canadian Foursome Stroke Mr and Mrs K, D Foxton. 8t 6—75: F Roberts and Mrs Todd 88. 9—79: J Hartnell and Mrs Ashworth. 95. 15—80. Hurunui Plate Amuri and Hanmer have tied in the Hurunui plate competition for women’s teams in the northern zone of the North Canterbury Templeton Cup area. HOLE-IN-ONE Mrs Horton, of the Avondale Golf Club, holed in one at the third hole, distance 125 yards, at the Tai Tapu club’s mixed open tournament yesterday. Mrs Horton used a three wood.