Visitors favoured for golf title

Press, 25 January 1989, Page 34

Visitors favoured for golf title

Golfers from outside of Canterbury have won the last two South Island junior women’s golf titles and that number may increase to three after this year’s championship at Russley from Saturday to Monday.

The presence of the New Zealand junior representatives, Lisa Aldridge (Paraparaumu

Beach) and Leanne Phillips (Blenheim), will have the most promising Canterbury players hardpressed to prevent the title going north again. Vicky Collis, from Nelson, was successful in 1987 and Tracey Hanson, from Wellington, prevailed at Waitikiri last year. Aldridge, aged 16, is destined for New Zealand

senior honours in the near future. A plus one handicapper, Aldridge was one of nine players invited to a national trial at Hamilton last July from which the New Zealand team for the Espirito Santo world tournament was selected. She was sixth in that event, and although she failed to gain selection for that world tournament she proved her ability to compete alongside the best amateurs when she finished third in the New Zealand 72-hole stroke championship for the Mellsop Cup in Auckland last November. The field was stacked with internationals from Australia, Britain and New Zealand.

Aldridge, a left-hander, was eliminated at the eighteenth in the second round of the match play by one of the country’s top rated players, Jan Cooke (Tauranga), who progressed to the semifinals before succumbing to Hanson. Aldridge was beaten in the semi-finals of the South Island junior championship last year by Margaret-Mary Coughlan. Philips was top qualifier for the South Island junior event but illness prevented her from competing in the match play. Two other visits to Christchurch golf courses later last year brought better luck for Philips. She was fourth in “The Press” invitation stroke event and led after 36 holes of the Canterbury stroke championship before being overrun by Hanson over the last 18 holes.

Canterbury’s brightest prospects are the three girls who attended the national coaching clinic in Wellington earlier this month, Kerrin Starr, Toni Batey and Kerry Williams, and the Canterbury Stylemaster representative, Lynne-Marie Shaskey.