Classic likely to end

Press, 9 December 1976, Page 40

Classic likely to end

PA Auckland Unless the Australian circuit shrinks through lack of money, this week’s City of Auckland golf classic will be the last for at least two years. Next year Auckland will not have a tournament at all. In 1978 the New Zealand Open is scheduled for the Auckland club’s course at Middlemore.

As long as the New Zealand pro circuit is sandwiched into two weeks in December, there is little hope of the City of Auckland Classic being reborn. Par regularly takes a pasting at the Grange, largely becasue its three par fives are all birdie propositions, and for the galleries there is the excitment of low rounds. At the Open

last week, players were applauded for surviving. The course record is a seven-under 64, set by Jack Newton, who beat George Archer in 1972. Last year, Bill Brask won the New Zealand Airlines Classic at the Grange in 276, eight under, while Tom Kite won the Auckland Classic the year before in 268. The course has been changed from the lay-out of the last two years. The short and controversial fourth has been dropped temporarily and the fourth is now a drive and chip par four of 296 m.

The fifth is a par-three of 118 m, using the green that was part of the former parfour fifth.

The Grange club has done well to present the course in a playable condition. Auckland courses, lacking fairway watering, dry out and

give the golfers wild bounces. The Grange fairways are now green and the greens, which will be watered each night, are holding. It does not ressemble the course some golfers facetiously named the "Grange Golf and Concrete Club.” The entry is the smallest the classic has had, but there is still plenty of class about, and the two golfers who will be watched are Bob Charles and Brask. Charles, who has won one classic and a New Zealand Open on the course, has been playing impressively the last three weeks without winning, while Brask wants to pick up one big cheque before flying hone to San Diego on Sunday night.

The course measures 5911 m (6466 yards) with a 35-36-71 par.