Smith tries again for golf record

Press, 26 February 1987, Page 48

Smith tries again for golf record

By 808 SCHUMACHER Debbie Smith’s endeavours to become the first woman golfer to win “The Press” invitation 54-hole stroke tournament on four occasions have been thwarted for the last two years.

And the Canterbury pair who have stood in the way of the international golfer from Motueka in 1985 and last year, Jeannette Ross and Liz Douglas, respectively, represent two of the main threats to Smith when this year’s event is played at Harewood at the week-end. Form credentials suggest that either Smith will achieve her fourth win or Douglas will Join her and Sue Hamilton as three-time winners of the sponsored tournament.

Smith, who has the tournament’s best 54-hole score of 224, twice accomplished, can look to a most satisfying result on her return to the national team earlier this month to bolster her confidence.

As a member of the team of three which took New Zealand to third place in the Queen Sirikit Cup in Manila earlier this month, she fared well against the best players from more than a dozen countries. A 54-hole total of 233 placed her fourth best in the individual aggregate. Douglas, the winner by two strokes last year from Smith and the Otago No. 1, Jan Scandrett, also an international, has had the benefit of five rounds of match-play golf inside a fortnight She was unbeaten in the Canterbury team’s competition which finished last Sunday, and a tight final game against Ross should have nicely rounded off her preparation for this week-end’s tournament

If consistency is to have its reward, Scandrett appeals as the golfer most likely to prevent either the Tasman No. 1 or the Canterbury No. 1 from compiling another significant success. Second has been Scan-,

drett’s lot for the last three years; she was runner-up to Smith in 1984, finished equal second with Christine Skinner to Ross two years ago, and shared second with Smith, two strokes behind Douglas, in last year’s tournament at Waitikiri.

On handicap, Douglas (plus three), Smith (plus one) and Scandrett (scratch), form a favoured trifecta and they could well fill the first three placings, if not in that order. The field of 39, which will play 36 holes on Saturday and the final 18 on Sunday morning, excludes very few of the best women golfers in the South Island. The Tasman area has Vicki Collis, Amy Rewita and two highly promising juniors, Trudl Thompson and Leanne Phillips, to support Smith; South Canterbury is represented by the former international, Sue Hutchins, and the experienced trio, Anne Seed, Helen Hames and Julia Knight; while Clare McKinnel and Jan Munden join Scandrett to lead Otago’s challenge. Although Smith experienced a winning trot between 1982 and 1984, Canterbury golfers have prevailed in eight of the previous 12 tournaments. The presence of Douglas, Ross, Dianne "Woodhouse, Adrienne Bond, Mary Sparrow, Rachel Buxton and Diana Bristol give Canterbury the advantage again, albeit numerically. •