Hope Wins At Shirley With Two Fine Rounds

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31032, 12 April 1966, Page 3

Hope Wins At Shirley With Two Fine Rounds

Precision under pressure in a stirring display against R. E. Clements, and frequent flashes of brilliance in the final with A. T. Baxendine took the 19-year-old Harewood player, D. R. Hope, to one of his most important successes at Shirley yesterday, with his victory in the club’s Easter tournament.

Hope thoroughly deserved his success. He played exceedingly good golf throughout the day, and his rounds of two under par, and one under, were testimony to his ability’ and determination: Shirley finals have not often produced golf of such quality.

Conditions could not have been more pleasant, the course was in beautiful order, and there were very few complaints about the greens.

Hope hit off against Clements on a sparkling morning. one of which the birds seemed to sing more willingly than usual. There was an open invitation to good golf and the response was splendid. Hope suffered moments of doubt before finishing very strongly against Clements, and he was thoroughly extended by Baxendine, whose ability to play to the card regularly could not quite match Hope’s run of five birdies in 11 holes.

Clements, perhaps, deserved a better fate than defeat at the seventeenth, for his I golf was immaculate for a long period. On the way out.; he missed only one green and j had nine bogeys. At the J seventh, his iron was short I and left, but from thick grass he played out with supreme delicacy, using the slope of the green beautifully to run up within two inches of the hole. Touch Lacking But his sting of par figures left him only square, for Hope, outdistanced off the tees by 30 and 40 yards quite regularly, did not make the mistake of striving for more distance. With his controlled, three-quarter swing, he hit many good tee shots and punched some splendid irons into the greens. But had Clements won back the putting touch for which he was noted not so long ago, Hope would have been in difficulties. Clements did not putt badly: but he could not get the ball into the hole from further out than a yard or so. Hope made only one serious error on the outward half, with a savage hook into the ditch from the fifth tee. When he missed the green at the second and third, his recoveries were authoritative. But he lost a golden chance at the ninth, where a sweetlyhit iron bit and held his ball two feet from the pin—and he missed the putt. At the tenth, he lost the hole when he missed a putt of four feet: he was one down, when he

should have been one up, and there was a feeling then that Hope, who is only 19, might not recover from these reverses. Hope In Command But Clements paved the way for Hope by three-put-ting the eleventh. From that point, Hope was in command. Clements saved the twelfth with a fine putt, but lost the fourteenth when he hit his approach 50 yards through the back of the green. At the 188-yard fifteenth Clements came from a bunker beautifully, to save with a 3, but he was then one down with three to play. The immense distance of the sixteenth fairway—6o4 yards—challenged him and he brought off a tremendous drive, with Hope not far behind him. They both played magnificent seconds, but Hope's lovely 9-iron put him only six feet past the pin, and in went the putt for a birdie.

From the seventeenth tee, both players were in rough at the left of the fairway. Hope played a thrilling shot, on the green, almost pin high but Clements found a bunker and, most uncharacteristically, failed to emerge from it at the first attempt Hope might possibly have had a birdie there: and he scored one at last, with the game over.

The other semi-final was a disappointment, for B. K. Franks could not find the accuracy which had marked his golf in the earlier rounds. He cut and sliced off the tees quite regularly, and Baxendine, without any real effort being demanded of him. was five up after seven hoi“s. A string of half a dozen pars helped Franks get oaek to three down, but more strife at the fourteenth cost him his last chance. Baxendine was four over par when the game ended at the fifteenth Baxendine was a very good golfer in the final, however. He has been in New Zealand since September, 1964, and in Christchurch for a year. In his native Scotland he played for the Lothians in Edinburgh, for Ayrshire, and was a Scottish boys’ international. With this background, something out of the way might be expected from him, and against Hope he performed splendidly. Baxendine, 30 years of age, has an extremely pleasant course manner, an unusual type of plus fours, a short, strictly-controlled swing, and and excellent temperament. He has not been able to find sufficient time for golf to bring him especial prominence since he came to Christchurch, but the three days’ play at Shirley allowed his natural talents to come to the surface. Disappointed In the final, he disappointed only with his inability to hole birdie putts in the early stages. At each of the first three holes he hit beautiful irons into the pin. At the first, he had a reasonable chance of a birdie; at the second and third, they were excellent chances, but none of the putts dropped. Baxendine looked relaxed and competent, even in this small tide of adversity, and he played fine golf. Hope, accurate off the tees as a rule, and with a fine judgment of distance in choosing his irons, made occasional errors, but kept delivering hammer blows at regular intervals.

He played the first hole | badly, and lost it; at the seci ond. he had a birdie. At the third, another one over. At the j fifth and seventh, birdies. So j it went on, and there was a I strange dissimilarity in the

scoring. After they had played 12 holes. Baxendine had dropped one stroke, scored one birdie, and had 10 pars. Hope to that stage had scored five birdies, three pars, and four one-overs. His principal error was at the eighth, where he hit his drive out of bounds. But he was still out in scratch 37 to Baxendine’s 36, and they were square. Baxendine should have been better placed than that, for his superb 3-iron into the wind at the 180-yard third earned a birdie which his putter let slip away.

Third Birdie At the seventh, Hope played a lovely chip, and holed it from 25 yards away for his third birdie. At the eighth, when Hope was in trouble, Baxendine was all wisdom, playing safely left, then safely to the apron of the green, before chipping up and holing a birdie putt. It was great golf. Hope led again with a birdie from four feet at the tenth, but they both slipped a stroke at the next hole. At the twelfth, Hope ran down a putt of 12 feet for another birdie to be two up. And at the short thirteenth, Baxendine had another great chance of a birdie after a fine tee shot, but missed a four-footer. But the pressure of events was not reflected in his golf. At the fifteenth he hit another lovely iron five feet from the pin and this time holed out for two. Superb Cliip

Hope saved the long sixteenth with a superb chip, and never looked like losing the seventeenth. Only the last hole found Baxendine wanting. His second was hit on the head and went through the green. He made a grand attempt to hole the chip, with Hope nicely placed on the green, and after holing his putt Baxendine conceded Hope a two footer —a generous gesture, but a popular one. They both scored 72 for the round.

The final of the plate between J. F. Logie of Russley and J. M. Lister of Timaru also produced fine golf—they were scratch, or a stroke more —and an extraordinary finish. Logie, one down playing the last, pitched in a foot short of the flag, hit the hole, ran up the pole and down into the hole for an eagle 2. In the nineteenth. Lister was too far to the right. But he played a memorable 8iron, clean and high, the ball just brushing a twig or two before stopping six inches from the hole. Logie, bunkered, made a valiant attempt at a half in birdie 3’s, but his ball, although taking the right line, stopped a foot short. It was a great ending to a fine tournament. Results:— Championships Senior.—Semi-finals: D. R. •Hope beat R. E. Clements, 3 and 1: A. T. Baxendine beat B. K. Franks, 4 and 3. Final: Hope beat Baxendine, 1 up. Intermediate. —Semi-finals: C. J. Ward beat J. H. Freeth, at the 19th: W. S. Bennie beat M. E. Ussher, 5 and 3. Final: Bennie beat Ward, 4 and 3.

Junior.—Semi-finals: A. T. Hopkins beat P. K. Richardson, 5 and 4: R. W. Garven beat K. Cleveland, 7 and 6. Final: Garven beat Hopkins, 3 and 1. Easter Plate.—Semi-finals: J. F. Logie ~beat I. D. Dobson, 3 and 2; J. M. Lister beat R. K. Atkinson, 3 and 2. Final: Lister beat Logie, at the 19th. Easter Senior Match, Scratch. —Semi-finals: P. Cleland beat B. J. O’Donovan, 6 and 5; P. J. Amos beat L. Elder, 1 up. Final: Cleland beat Amos, 2 and 1. Intermediate Match Handicap. —Semi-finals: N. Jones beat S. C. Dixon, 3 and 1; M. K. Rodgers beat J. H. Alexander, 1 up. Final: Rodgers beat Jones, 2 and 1.

Senior Match Plate, Scratch. — Semi-final: B. V. Watt beat R. S. Peate, 5 and 4. Final: Watt beat R. B. Grey, 3 and 2.

Intermediate Plate. Semifinals: D. C. Watson beat A. J. McMaster, 4 and 3; D. Began beat R. A. Pearce. Final: Watson beat Began, 1 up. Intermediate Bandicap Plate. —Semi-finals: B. V. Rossi beat R. W. Jones, 1 up: S. C. Suckling beat A. I. Charles, 5 and 4. Final: Suckling beat Rossi, 4 and 3.

Junior Plate.—Semi-final: J. Crew beat P. C. Guthrey, by default. Final: Crew beat D. B. Ward, 3 and 2.

Bandicap Flight.—Semi-finals: I. McNish beat M. J. Crooke; E. S. Benderson beat J. Yellowlees. Final: McNish beat Benderson, 5 and 4.

Bandicap Flight Plate. —Semifinals: D. J. Borler beat P. Mott, 3 and 1; J. B. Groom beat H A. Weatherhead, by default. Final: Groom beat Borler. 1 up. Humphreys Cup,—H. H. Ivory and D. R. Gordon, 1 down.