Waitikiri snatches share of inter-club golf lead

Press, 10 September 1984, Page 3

Waitikiri snatches share of inter-club golf lead

Only a 25m putt on the last hole by Wayne Bailey gave Waitikiri, the trophy holder, a share of the lead in the Woodward Cup interclub golf championship at Harewood yesterday. The second and third rounds were played and Waitikiri, and Harewood, have so far scored the possible three points. But for both these clubs, it was an exercise in escapology. Waitikiri won both its matches by 4% games to 3%, and Harewood’s margins were little better. The old course at Harewood was looking its best, but the golf was a mixture of the great and the ghastly, with cries of anguish bracketing the sounds of timber being struck. However, it was a fascinating day’s play, with some spectacular, some unexpected individual and collective results.

On the team front, there was much delight ; in the , Waimairi Beach camp at a ? draw with Christchurch and £

incredulity generally at Russley’s heavy loss to Central Canterbury. The New Zealand representative, John Williamson, suffered two defeats as No. 2 for Christchurch and Waimairi’s Fred Poskitt played brilliantly to beat the Christchurch top man, John Sanders, in only 13 holes.

Poskitt did everything right, from the start, hitting long straight drives and playing crisp and accurate irons. He was five under the card when the match ended and Sanders, only one over, must have wondered what had hit him. Poskitt in the first round beat James Angus, of Russley, and Angus in turn defeated the Canterbury representative, Paul Minifie (Waitikiri). In the afternoon Minifie was in splendid form in beating Fin Hobbs (North Canterbury), and to complete a dizzy cyjcle T of events, Hobbs had beaten Poskitt in the morning.

Another who had a particularly good day was John Crawford-Smith (Coringa), who beat Williamson and then the well-performed Ross Jones (Templeton). Williamson was a sonry shadow of his best golfing self. He three-putted five times in the first eight holes against Crawford-Smith, and was riddled with error in the afternoon when he went down to the capable Steve Greenall. Two of New Zealand’s best young golfers met in the afternoon. Mark Street played beautiful golf to beat Brent Paterson. Street was strong and accurate. Paterson is still struggling to regain form after changes in the swing. Harewood had its tailenders to thank for victory over Templeton and Waitikiri had many nervous twitches before downing Russley. David Murphy had three birdies and was level with the card in disposing of Neville Griffiths, but Minifie

was all over the course and Tony Soper was also well below his best. With only three holes to be played, Waitikiri was down in three matches, square in one, and only one up in another, but Bailey wrung a half out of his match with John Beirwirth and Robert McDonald caught and overtook George Turner.

Minifie made a tremendous start against Hobbs in the afternoon. This match started at the third where Minifie had a birdie. He continued to do right all the things he bad done wrong before lunch. There was a birdie at the fifth, and an eagle 3 at the 441 m seventh. The saucer-shaped green there is a complex of slopes and borrows, but Minifie managed to chip in from thick rough. There was another birdie at 14 and although a few shots were slipped it was a highly proficient display. Hobbs, noth withstanding a couple of early three-putts,

was only two over at the end, and very nearly kept the game alive at 17, where a birdie chip from the rough missed by millimetres.

Waitikiri was again in trouble in this match. Six holes from home, three of its players were trailing, two more were square. Greg Macintosh, four up, had his lead whittled away, but won on the last green, to leave his Cup record at one defeat in 12 matches. Murphy played his last hole (the second on the course) very safely for a win and Soper transformed a twohole deficit to an advantage of one with extraordinary rapidity and in highly exciting if not classical circumstances. But it required Bailey’s long cross-green putt to keep at bay John Reid, the left-hander from North Canterbury, and perhaps the longest hitter on .the course, yesterday,....

Results: page 24