Top golf eight emerging

Press, 2 September 1981, Page 24

Top golf eight emerging

Events over the last three golfing week-ends have established Canterbury's top line-up for the South Island inter-provincial tournament in Invercargill early next month, but places down the order remain wide open. The non-appearance to date of last season’s Canterbury “golfer of the year”, Simon Robinson, has complicated the selection. If Robinson is free of his farm commitments and able to play in the next four rounds of the Woodward Cup. this month he would need only to perform satisfactorily to clinch a position even if it was one a little lower than normal.

For Canterbury’s first representative fixture . last month, the provincial selectors decided on John Williamson, Jim Lapsley and Geoff Saunders as its top trio, in that order. There seems no reason to suggest a change. Williamson and Lapsley both had a win and a loss against their Mid-South Canterbury opponents. Williamson struck the ball with elegant ease, but encountered some difficulty with short putts. Lapsley’s game had rough edges but he was not too concerned, consider-

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ing that he was just starting his serious preparation.

Saunders was forced to withdraw from the team through illness, but the former Canterbury No. 1 was seen in a favourable light a week later when he played for Country against Town at Rangiora.

Saunders uncharacteristically missed some trifling putts and that brought about his demise against Williamson, but the Central Canterbury golfer was much more convincing against Gary Maw in the second round, even though the tenacious Maw extended the match to the last green.

In the opening round of the Woodward Cup last Sunday, Saunders played golf that would have normally earned him an easy victory and early finish. Unluckily for him, he was pitted against the formidable Williamson. They went to the seventeenth green before the splendid duel was decided in Williamson’s favour. At the finish, Williamson was five under par, Saunders three under.

Lapsley was beaten on the greens by Maw in the Country and Town fixture, but

BOB SCHUMACHER

was his usual assertive self against Williamson in the second round.

Lapsley, Canterbury’s No. 1 at the 1980 Freyberg tournament, was 3 up after four against Williamson, but lost the next three holes, two of them through wayward drives, the other to a brilliant birdie by his opponent.

But Lapsley struck a hot patch in the middle. He had three birdies in four holes from the ninth to the twelfth — Williamson halved one hole in birdies — to go 3 up and withstood a determined finish by Williamson to win, 1 up. The strong point of Maw’s game this season has been his finesse round and on the greens. The top Waitikiri player had two wins against his Mid-Canterbury rivals and scored a more notable triumph over Lapsley. He has earned a place in the top eight.

If Robinson is excluded, six other golfers can lay strong claims for the remaining four places. Ricky Vincent, a semi-finalist in this year’s ’ Canterbury match-play championship,

has lost only one of five matches in the last three weeks. He was beaten by the Country No. 6, lan Carruthers, but avenged that loss last Sunday when they opposed each other again in the Woodward Cup.

lan Ross, a Freyberg player last year, has not made the most successful starts to the season, losing three of his last five matches. However, most of the losses have been close and Ross has the right temperament for the big occasion.

A former Freyberg representative, Stephen Street, enjoyed a prosperous week-end, winning the Rangiora open and beating Maw in the Woodward Cup. He and his younger brother, Mark, also a Freyberg player, might just have the inside running over the Russley No. 1, Paul Atkinson, and the Coringa No. 1, Brent Paterson, for the final positions.

The next four rounds of the Woodward Cup will be important for all aspirants, but the likely Canterbury eight at this stage is: Williamson, Lapsley, Saunders, Maw, Vincent, Ross, S. Street and M. Street.