Onus placed on Waitikiri golfers

Press, 23 February 1978, Page 32

Onus placed on Waitikiri golfers

By

808 SCHUMACHER

A daunting task confronts the Waitikiri Golf Club’s senior, intermediate and junior champions at Templeton on Sunday. The Canterbury regional final of the Peter Stuyvesant club championship will be played on the tough country course. It will be the third Peter Stuyvesant event and Waitikiri has won the previous two. Faced with the unenviable job of trying to maintain Waitikiri’s proud record are Colin McNally, the senior champion, Gary Taylor and : lan Sanders. They are cer- i

tain to make a bold bid. Twenty-four chibs, the same number as last year, will be represented in the 36-hole tournament which is decided on aggregate stableford.

It is a competition which gives all players an equal chance and each member of the team has an important part to play in accumulating as many stableford points as possible.

One of the main omissions from the entries is the Christchurch club which recognises only one club champion. Simon Robinson was the senior champion last

year, but because of the club’s failure to acknowledge winners in the other grades, he has been deprived of an opportunity to represent his club in the regional final. Robinson was keen to play in the tournament, as was last year’s champion, Geoff Saunders, but the club’s policy does not allow a team entry. There are some prominent names among the senior champions in the field. Bruce Taylor, the Canterbury captain, Tony Richards, a former Freyberg representative, and John Allin, a member of the Canterbury

eight-man team two years ago, all represented their clubs last year and will do so again. Russley, with Taylor at the helm, and John Gibbons and David Barley to support

him, must go close to top honours, and the home team, Templeton, led by the experienced Roy Newburn and backed by Don Mcßride and Brian Eady, must be highly regarded on their own

course. The successful team will join 15 other regional finalists in the New Zealand final at The Grange, Auckland, on April 22 and 23.