An old score settled

Press, 9 July 1980, Page 26

An old score settled

By

BOB SCHUMACHER

Avondale has been Waitikiri’s nemesis for four successive years, but Waitikiri finally remedied the situation at Rangiora last Sunday when it won an absorbing Woodward Cup golf encounter, 4-J-3L-

The contest was remarkable for its rapid fluctuations in fortunes, players exchanging holes so regularly that it was almost impossible to tell which team held sway as they approached the final holes. One prominent Waitikiri official, who was becoming decidedly agitated as Avondale threatened to take command, commented that he had expected the unbeaten Waitikiri team to have no problem in disposing of a team which had managed. only a half point from its previous four marches and was ninth of the 10 Woodward sides. But Avondale's track record against Wait’kiri indicated differently. Waitikiri’s last success was a 7-1 victory in 1975: the next four contests resulted in two wins for Avondale and two draws, the tie in 1976 denying Waitikiri a royal chance of winning the inter-club trophy. At one stage in its duel at Rangiora, Waitikiri looked set for a comfortable victory. With five holes remaining, the top team was ahead in six matches and trailed in two.

However, three of the bottom quartet for Wai-

.tikiri were ahead by only one hole and when the players left the fifteenth green, two of them were in deficit and the third all square.

All eight matches . had their moments of .suspense and intrigue and in the end it was a few putting lapses by some of the Avondale' 1 players on the closing holes that enabled a relieved Waitikiri team to continue its winning wav.

Few holes were halved between the rival No. Bs, Mike White (Waitikiri) and John Crawford-Smith. White was 3 up in the early part, but experienced a bad patch in the middle and lost four consecutive holes.

White, who drives righthanded and putts lefthanded, holed a 5m birdie putt on 16 to level the match. He had another good birdie chance at the next but missed the putt. However, it did not matter for he won the hole when Crawford-Smith missed his second putt from less than a metre.

Perhaps it was justice for the youthful CrawfordSmith that White should three-putt the last green from 9m and that the Avondale player was safely down in two putts from 20m to square the match.

White’s team-mate in the foursome, the left-

handed Geoff McCarthy, was 1 up after 13 and 1 down after three-putting the fourteenth and fifteenth greens. He halved the next two holes with Bruce Trangmar — a great bunker shot enabling him to match Trangmar’s par on the seventeenth. ' McCarthy had an excellent chance ,to win the last hole and get a half. Trangmar was 23m from the pin for three and McCarthy 7m. Not surprisingly, Trangmar threeputted the damp green, but McCarthy committed the same offence. Avondale’s second victory was provided by its unbeaten No. 6. Murray Wright. Wright had Malcolm Fry dormie five, but Fry took advantage of some dreadful play by Wright to win 14, 15 and 16. A 4m birdie putt on the seventeenth by Wright ended his opponent’s late charge.

The veteran Frank Roberts holed several long pressure putts against Waitikiri’s No. 5, Bob Farrant. and there was never much between the pair. They were deadlocked playing the last and Roberts, after his first putt from 15m, left the attempt so short that he had to putt again before Farrant.

Roberts confidently holed his 4m putt for par and Farrant. from almost that distance, missed the

birdie putt for a' win. However, Waitikiri proved strong in the top positions. John McCormick, playing' his first match this season, was 3 down after six against John Hanton. but his putting improved immeasurably from that point, and aided by some putting lapses by Hanton, he won seven of the next 10 holes, beating Hanton at the sixteenth. ’ .

His playing partner, Ten McKenzie, also ended his match at that hole after being slightly ahead of Alan Crawford-Smith most of the way. , Waitikiri was assured of a draw at least when- the steady Gary Maw accounted for Chris Barry at the seventeenth. Barry. 3 down with four holes remaining, won 15 when his birdie putt was conceded and 16 after Maw had a couple of uncharacteristic loose shots. Barry’s gallant fightback was stopped by a 6m birdie putt by Maw at the seventeenth. • The pressure was on Vincent to beat Brown, a member of last year’s Canterbury Freyberg team But from 1 up after 14, he dropped the next two holes to par and was 1 down playing the seventeenth. There Vincent had a reasonable birdie chance, but left his putt short — a cardinal sin at that stage — and though he won the last hole to gain a half, Waitikiri had sneaked home' in a memorable contest.