Stout great loss to Canterbury golf

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34045, 8 January 1976, Page 3

Stout great loss to Canterbury golf

B:i

BOB SCHUMACHER)

Cantei’bury golf will lose one of its most popular players, and a forthright and etfii lent administrator, when Tom Stout transfers to Auckland at the end of the month.

Stout. manager of the Hornby branch of the Bank of New Zealand, has been promoted to assistant man- } ager of the main branch in i Auckland. The Russley club and the Canterbury association have benefited considerably from the untiring work that Stout has accomplished for golf . He has been club captain of Russley for the last two years and is at present a vice-president. For the last three years. Stout has been on the provincial selection panel and has been Russley’s representative on the C.P.G.A. for the last (wo years. He is chairman of the match committee. Stout, aged 45, strikes the ball with remarkable power for a relatively small player and is consistently accurate. His golfing career began almost 30 years ago in Southland. In 1953 he won four matches from six for Southland. playing in the top position for the province’s Freyberg Rose Bowl team. The following year he moved to Wellington, and represented that province in the Freyberg tournament at No. 5, where he was unbeaten. Since coming to Christ-

church in 1957 Stout has I twice won the Canterbury match-play title. In his first success he beat New Zealand's most famous golfer. Bob Charles, in the semifinals; his win success was five years ago Playing ft r Russlev tn the Woodward Cup senior inlet club competition. Stout has an outstanding record Over nine seasons, he has won 43 of his 61 matches and halved a further seven. He proved in the competition last year that his golf is as good as ever He was one of only two players to complete the seven rounds unbeaten and. fittingly, he was captain of the Russley team that won the premier trophy

for the tenth time in 11 Ironically, the other unbeaten player. Paul Hart stone, the Canterbury No. 1. was also from Russley and he, too. is leaving later this month for a North Island appointment. Stout intends to continue playing inter-club compel i tion in Auckland, although he feels that his golfing might be more restricted.