Five Unbeaten Teams In Rose Bowl Tourney

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31343, 13 April 1967, Page 15

Five Unbeaten Teams In Rose Bowl Tourney

(From Our Own Reporter) DUNEDIN. The giddy fluctuations of form which contribute to the fascinating character of a Freyberg Rose Bowl tournament were soon in evidence when the 1967 contest started at St. Clair yesterday.

Wellington, last year’s winner, narrowly escaped defeat by Southland, and Otago lost to Manawatu - Wanganui, a team which had been

outplayed 5-1 in the

first round. It was an encouraging day, however, for Canterbury and Mid-South Canterbury. Both sides gained two wins and are joint leaders with Auckland, Wellington and Waikato.

Canterbury and Mid-South Canterbury will meet in a key match this afternoon. MURRAY FIVE UNDER The eagerly awaited match between S. G. Jones (Hawke’s Bay) and R. C. Murray (Otago) fulfilled all expectations. Murray beat the New Zealand champion and was five under par at the finish. Jones’s score was only two strokes more. The picturesque St Clair course, perched . high above the Pacific, is only 6361 yards in length but it provided a thorough test for the 84 players yesterday. Mild temperatures and an absence of wind led to a general expectation that scoring would be spectacular. Some players—including Jones, Murray and their fellow international, J. D. Durry (Wellington)—proved superior to the course, tut the majority found the steeply-rising fairways and the vast amount of borrow on the greens a barrier. SPECTACULAR FINISH Durry’s exceptionally sound technique and balanced temperament was all that saved Wellington from defeat by Southland. With the score 2} each, Southland’s number one, L. J. Stephens, led Durry by two holes with four to play. An eagle and a birdie by

Durry brought the game back to square and then both players drove into a thicket at the seventeenth. The unfortunate Stephens took two shots to regain the fairway and lost the hole.

Durry then set the seal on his win by taking the eighteenth with a birdie. The Wellington captain covered the course in 68—four under par. Canterbury, too, experienced considerable anxiety before beating a tenacious Bay of Plenty team in the afternoon. Three of the matches hung in the balance until the last green and it was not until E. H. M. Richards, the last man in, had halved his match with the stubborn A. C. Relph that victory was gained. The last two players in the order, R. K. Atkinson and J. F. Logie, each won twice for Canterbury, while Richards and J. R. Broadhurst gained a win and a half. R. E. Clements, not at his best, lost twice, while a 40ft putt which hit the eighteenth hole in the centre but jumped out prevented D. R. Hope from completing the day unbeaten. ALL THAT IS BEST Amateur golf in this country has few finer sights to offer than a Murray-Jones match. Skill, concentration and sportsmanship were all in evidence yesterday and if Murray proved a worthy victor on this occasion, Jones remained a great favourite. Murray was renowned for his iron shots when he played in Christchurch, now his accuracy is even greater, and on St Clair’s sloping greens this strength proved to be his greatest asset Murray near the middle of a pine tree on the side of a hill, with his ball sitting on rough, will still play the same brand of golf. He was in this position at the seventeenth after hooking his drive but scorning branches that snatched at his clubhead, he hit a grand iron to the green, the ball landing 7ft from the pin. In the last six holes, Murray had four birdies and Jones three.

Some of the prospective New Zealand representatives for this year’s Commonwealth tournament did not perform as convincingly as they had hoped. L D. Woodbury (Wellington) had several lapses and one loss, B. A. Stevens (Auckland) struggled to find form on the greens and J. P. Means (Manawatu-Wanganui) had flashes of brilliance and periods of bother. INJURED FOOT

Recently, he dropped a 44gallon drum on his foot and he limped badly all day. But it was more than his injury that contributed to his defeats by Murray and Relph. Durry, however, showed

that New Zealand’s guest at Vancouver will not be without hope. He crushed the burly Northland player, C. B. McLeod, who took his scalp three years ago, and was five under par when the game finished at the eleventh. One of the best of the younger players, G. E. Clarke (Otago), was six under in beating the prominent I. S. Macdonald (Hawke’s Bay). Canterbury’s six men were not entirely convincing but all displayed great application. Putting was the chief problem. Clements did not putt with any surety—indeed, he used a sand wedge to hit the ball into the hole on one occasion and Atkinson struggled hard before he holed a 35ft birdie putt on his last green of the day. TENACIOUS ATTITUDE

Hope, too had some vexing moments on the green but his tenacious attitude to fight back from losing positions in both his games augured well for the remaining matches. Richards and Logie were remarkably steady and Broadhurst was outstanding in the Bay of Plenty game, recovering from two down to win two up. Clements provided the individual highlight when he holed a 100-yard wedge shot at the first hole in the morning. If anything, Mid-South Canterbury performed even better than its “big brother.” I. S. Harvey showed much of his old assurance in beating Macdonald. Only once did he miss a green and be was three under par at the end. G. P. Vesty scored a notable victory against H. R. Carver, a former national semi-finalist, and T. E. Pfahlert produced four birdies in seven holes to beat J. Jeffery (Taranaki), another Freyberg favourite.