Unbeaten Waikato Holds Golf Lead

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31345, 15 April 1967, Page 15

Unbeaten Waikato Holds Golf Lead

(From Our Own Reporter)

DUNEDIN.

Although under great pressure at the St. Glair course yesterday, the unfancied Waikato side scored its fifth successive win, to be the only unbeaten team when the last rounds of the Freyberg Rose Bowl interprovincial golf tournament are played today.

Waikato’s strongest rival, Auckland, finished the day a point behind, after a dramatic finish with a grimlydetermined Canterbury side.

For most of the afternoon Auckland looked certain to win comfortably, but finally

it scrambled home on

the final green after D. R. Hope’s last throw in an ambitious threehole gamble had failed. Hope, who has come of age as a match-play golfer in this tournament, was two down with three to play, reached the eighteenth tee all square, and then suffered the same sort of tree trouble which cost R. C. Murray his game against J. D. Durry the previous day. He took four to reach the green and lost to B. P. Vezieh, one up. FIVE IN RUNNING The loss put Canterbury out of the running and left five teams—Waikato, Auckland, Otago, Wellington, and Bay of Plenty—with chances of winning the Rose Bowl. The points after five rounds are:— Waikato, 5: Auckland, 4: Wellington, Otago, Bay of Plenty, 34: Mid South Canterbury, 3: Canterbury, Southland, 2i; Manawatu-Wanganul, 2; Gisborne. Hawke's Bay, li: Taranaki, Buller-Westland-Nel-son,Marlborough, 1; Northland, *. Canterbury is involved in one of three vital games today—against Waikato. The others will be between Wellington and Auckland, and Waikato v. Wellington. The latter match could have the fate of the Rose Bowl hanging on the result. But if all teams take turns in beating each other, Otago and Bay of Plenty could be close to success, for both have easy matches today. MID-SOUTH ROUTED Mid - South Canterbury’s hopes ended with a 5-1 rout at Wellington’s hands while Otago narrowly escaped from drawing with the lowly Gisborne team. The bespectacled Otago number five, J. S. Roche, four down with five to play, won the last five holes against R. T. Field to give Otago victory. Most of the leading golfers ■ won well yesterday, but 1 Otago’s two bright youngsters, 1 G. E. Clarke and A. J. ■ Palmer, were both beaten— Clarke for the first me this week—and the precocious Auckland No. 1, B. C. Rafferty, bowed to the immaculate golf of Canterbury’s top man, E. H. M. Richards. The only number one play unbeaten is G. C. Stevenson (Waikato). Yesterday, he accounted for the former New Zealand representative, J. P. Means (ManawatuWanganui), in an exceptionally tight game. QUIET PROGRESS Means was an awesome figure off the tees but his iron shots were slack during the second nine holes, and it was one such shot which cost him the match. At the sixteenth, a magnificent drive was followed by an incredibly poor effort to find the green. He dragged his ball to the back and left of his target, and, incensed at his fallibility,

flung his club at the turf in front of him.

Stevenson, meanwhile, had progressed quietly along the rough, chipped to eight feet of the pin and holed his putt to win. He held his advantage to the end, to win the game for Waikato.

The Canterbury team played with aggression and purpose against Auckland. Richards and R. K. Atkinson, who won their games, were outstanding, R. E. Clements and Hope skirmished with their opponents to the end and J. R. Broadhurst and J. F. Logie were simply overcome by better men.

Richards has seldom played better. His booming drives and whirring irons had Rafferty scrambling to make up distance at the long holes, and his putting was reliable. Richards was one over par at the finish, having dropped two strokes at the third, his only blemish. The course seemed to shrink as Richards swung easily into his drives and fairway irons. His mid-iron shots to the greens at the par-five holes provided some of the finest spectacles of the afternoon, and he tied the bow on an excellent performance by holing a 20ft birdie putt to take the game, 4 and 2. NO THREE-PUTTS

The long-sought breakthrough on the greens came for Atkinson against R. W. Wilkinson; he had no threeputts, for the first time in the contest But he did have 14 pars and it was this unflagging consistency which gained him victory. There was no doubt that his experience at the fifth hole—he exploded well from a bunker and holed a six-foot putt—contributed greatly to his win. The different air yesterday caused Hope to misjudge his distances and when he pitched into a bed of pine needles under the trees at the back of the fourteenth green, his game seemed as good as over. Hope, however, chatted amiably with Vezieh as he parted the pine needles behind his ball and was still of cheerful countenance when be played a sand iron eight feet short of the hole. He got his putt for a half and Vezieh, perhaps marvelling inwardly at Hope’s assurance, lost two o( the next three holes to be square.

The Aucklander’s wretched playing of the seventeenth made it appear that his concentration bad evaporated and that Hope would take the last hole as well. But at the eighteenth the Canterbury number two pulled his drive into the trees, played a seven iron on to the neighbouring fairway and then hit over the trees in a bid to find the green. His ball ended under more trees on the opposite side of the eighteenth fairway, and although he ran his fourth on to the green, he missed the putt and Vezieh, down in four, snatched an exciting win.

Broadhurst and Logie had little luck on the greens, while chipping and putting were usually too short, although he fought well to take his game against B. A. Stevens, the New Zealand representative, to the seventeenth, where, significantly, he lost through three-putting. Mid-South Canterbury was unable to hold Wellington, but there was admiration for the display of G. P. Vesty in his victory over J. E. Meikle. Vesty was one under par for the match.

I. S. Harvey lost on the final green to I. D. Woodbury because of a poorly played chip, while A. C. Browne fought back well after losing the first four holes to J. D. Durry. Browne hit only the fairway in the first nine holes but his capable iron play kept him in the game until the fifteenth.