Solid golf effort from women’s team

Press, 3 July 1985, Page 38

Solid golf effort from women’s team

A New Zealand women’s golf team, without the top trio of Janice Arnold, Brenda Ormsby and Debbie Smith, still achieved creditable results against some of Australia’s leading women players on a recent visit to Queensland. The six-member team returned this week after having played in two important open tournaments, the South Pacific classic and the Ansett 72-hole tournament. The New Zealanders finished in high placings in both tournaments, played on long Queensland courses. The best results belonged to the Bay of Plenty No. 2, Jan Cooke, whose 54-hole total of 222 gave her third place in the South Pacific classic at the Surfers Paradise

club. In the event, which was won by the South Australian professional, Sue Tonkin, after a play-off with Desley Harper, of Queensland, the young Poverty Bay golfer, Karen de Latour, was fourth on 223, which included a third round of 69. The only South Islander in the New Zealand side, Melanie Irvine (Otago) was seventh on 230, 13 strokes behind the winner. Her chances were not helped by a mysterious allergy which affected her throughout the tournament. Of the other New Zealand representatives, Tracey Hanson (Wellington) carded 236, Mamie McGuire (Auckland), 237, and Ingrid van Steenbergen (Hawke’s Bay),

238. Cooke was again the best New Zealander in the Ansett tournament and it was only a two-over par on the last hole that cost her the title. The Queenslander, Libby Wilson, the beaten finalist in the 1983 New Zealand women’s amateur championship at Harewood, birdied the last hole to win the tournament on 301, with Cooke second on 303. All six members of the national team qualified in the top 28 in the tournament which was played on three different courses. Van Steenbergen finished fourth on 311, McGuire was seventh on 314 and Irvine and de Latour tied for thirteenth place on 319. Hanson was down the field on 329.