LEADER with five under Marsh unhappy when golf abandoned

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33384, 16 November 1973, Page 20

LEADER with five under Marsh unhappy when golf abandoned

(New Zealand Press Association} AUCKLAND. I'he “ail play abandoned” call from the Grange official on the seventeenth fairway meant to G. V. Marsh that his five-under-par score counted for nothing in the City of Auckland Classic golf yesterday.

Leading the field, the Australian professional, in his customary tam o’shanter and dark glasses, stood ready to drive off at the seventeenth when the call came.

1 Very heavy showers caused the abandonment just before 2 p.m. and under the rales of the New Zealand Professional Golfers’ Association, all scores were abandoned, too. Loss of round 11 The tournament will now : be played over 54 holes— Iwith the same cut-offs—7s •] after the round today' and •150 after the round on SaturIday. “Play was abandoned be- . cause of the time factor,” ; said Mr R. D. Pulman, chair- ; man of the tournament committee. “We still had Yun e threes to hit off from the first tee,! the eleventh green was under]

water, and they would noth have finished before it was]: too dark for play.” , , Heavy downpours I The final stoppage came j after the second of two heavy ' downpours. The first, in the morning, held up play for ' half an hour and it was re- ] started with the firing of a ' shotgun. When play was abandoned the Australians. P. W. Thom-' son, K. D. G. Nagle -and ; Marsh, had gathered from ad- ; jacent fairways, and R. .1. ' Charles, the New Zealander, q wandered over. “Is this a strike?” he; asked. Far from it. Marsh would! have liked play to continue. . Nagle and Charles probably I did, too, because Nagle was four under after 13 holes and j Charles was three under ( after 12. | i I “Hasty decision” I Marsh’s immediate re- I (action was: “I don’t know the ; full circumstances, but at I first glance this might have ' [been a hasty decision. j “Naturally it is always dislappointing to have a match stopped when you are playing} well.” Marsh was two strokes up after only two holes. His fairway second at the first hole finished a few inches away from the hole and he sank a good putt at the second. He was still two under at the short eighth where his tee ishot dropped into the bunker

at the back, his chip was short, but he sank a 22-foot putt. He birdied the thirteenth comfortably, and then at the par-3 fifteenth sank an 18foot downhill putt. Then he waited until the hailstones disappeared from the sixteenth green and coolly sank a 15-foot putt to go five under. The loudest cheer on the course came when Nagle’s fairway second rolled into the par-4 seventh for an eagle, and with a couple of other birdies he held a theoretical second place. Lister thankful I R. R. Newdick, the unattached Auckland professional, birdied three of the last four holes he played, to be three under after 14, and Charles also had three birdies. But there were those who were probably thankful that the round was called off. The New Zealander, J. M. Lister, for example, who was six over after 13. And J. Newton (Australia), last year’s winner, was three over after 11. Thomson, too, was one jover after 15. This was after |he missed an 18-inch putt on the fourteenth and missed the 18-inch return putt as well. “Why won’t it go in?” he asked, incredulously. He did not need to worry. The showers kept coming, the greens became saturated and now he, and 135 others, can start again today.