Golfers slump to defeat

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 8

Golfers slump to defeat

NZPA staff correspondent Melbourne New Zealand’s junior golfers yesterday sloshed to their worst defeat in five rounds in the Shell Australia junior golf tournament in Melbourne. Playing in driving rain at the city's Metropolitan golf course, the New Zealanders went down, 1-4, to Queensland, dashing any hopes of a good final position in the matchplay tournament which ends when it tackles Tasmania tomorrow. Western Australia has already wrapped up the title, with five match wins and 20.5 individual points. It is the state’s first win in the championships since 1903. New South Wales and Queensland will be fighting for the runner-up position. N.S.W. has 3.5 matches with 17 individual points while Queensland has 3.5 matches with 13.5 points. New Zealand began the series with a 2-3 loss to Western Australian on Wednesday morning, before scoring a lucky win over New South Wales the same afternoon when the Australian side had a game taken from them on a technicality, turning a tied match into a 3%-lVi win for the New Zealanders. Fortune was riding with the New Zealanders on Thursday morning when they drew with South Australia. but that afternoon Victoria salvaged a win over the New Zealanders when Geoff Stephens (N.Z.) lost the game he had been leading throughout, on the last hole, giving Victoria a 3%-l % win. The stars of the New Zealand team so far have been the Glen Goldfinch

and Lloyd Gilmore, and Darryl Court, of Manawatu. Until yesterday Goldfinch had not lost a game, winning in New Zealand’s first three clashes and halving his game against Victoria, before carrying a heavy cold into yesterday’s game against Queensland and recording his first loss. Court provided New Zealand’s other win against W.A., its only win against Victoria and halved his game against N.S.W.. while Gilmore won against New South Wales and South Australia. The team's manager. Neil Woodbury, was disappointed with yesterday’s loss, but was full of praise for the way his six young golfers have performed so far. “They have all played very well, but eveiy so often we’ve come up against a player who has played above his game — although that’s probably happened with us too,” he said. “We thought that with the rest in the morning we would be right this afternoon, but the weather beat us.”