Top golfers for pro-am circuit

Press, 23 September 1983, Page 32

Top golfers for pro-am circuit

Spring is a particularly inviting season for golf, even for watching it, and there is every prospect of this year’s familiar pro-am circuit in Christchurch winning a strong following from the public. The circuit, consisting of seven tournaments, will begin at Avondale tomorrow. The other fixtures are at Waitikiri on Sunday, Windsor on Tuesday, Russley on Wednesday, Avondale (for the Canterbury Surf Life Saving Association tournament) on the following day, with meetings at Templeton on the Friday and Coringa on the Saturday. A feature of this year’s circuit will be the presence of David Good, of Tasmania, who won the 1977 New Zealand Airlines Open after a play-off with Billy Dunk.

Good will bring three other Tasmanian professionals — Jim Fleming, David Cramp and George Tranner — with him, and five Tasmanian amateurs. Pat Mateer, an American

now living in Auckland, did particularly well on this circuit two years ago. He will be a contender again, and so will Denis Clark, of Waikato, a former New Zealand World Cup player. An outstanding amateur who has made a successful change to professional ranks, Frank Nobilo (Auckland) is a competitor, as is the very well performed Richard Coombes, of Wellington. Kim Southerden, of Napier, and a young Auckland professional, Gary Parkinson, are likely to be prominent. A particularly welcome visitor from Masterton will be lan Arundel, for many years a professional at Russley. In all, there will be 43 professionals in the circuit. Each tournament will carry prize money of at least $2OOO, and more support may well be forthcoming before the tournaments end. The Christchurch co-ordi-nator for the series is the Harewood professional, Tom Hanton.