Canterbury’s top golfer heads north

Press, 27 June 1989, Page 38

Canterbury’s top golfer heads north

By

BOB SCHUMACHER

An outstanding golfer and ambassador for the sport in Canterbury, Brent Paterson, is bound for Auckland at the week-end, a work promotion taking the international away from the province for an indefinite period.

Paterson, a development executive with Brierley Cromwell Property, Ltd, has been transferred to Auckland where he will start on Monday as a marketing executive. For Canterbury’s No. 1 amateur since 1983, the decision to leave behind family and friends in the province in which he was born and bred was never going to be easy, but he said yesterday that his career was now his top priority. Whether Paterson, aged 28, will be available to help Canterbury defend the Government Life inter-provincial championship at Hastings in November is not known. “I will need to know the rules on residential qualification firstly, then the Canterbury association may consider that the opportunity is right to promote the guys up the batting order.” Paterson is enjoying his golf at present — and always does when he is playing well — and has no intention of allowing his golf clubs to go unused for long. He has several Auckland clubs in mind, his choice will be “the best course.”

From an early age Paterson was a cut above the average golfer. A keen and successful sportsman in rugby and tennis in his school years, Paterson turned to golf when he was 15, his intensely competitive nature seeking the challenge of being in control of his own destiny on the course.

The hand-and-eye coordination which comes naturally to gifted sportspeople was soon apparent in Paterson. At 16 he was twelfth qualifier in the 1977 New Zealand ama-

teur championship at a time when only a few juniors that young had made an impression at national level.

Attending the New Zealand coaching school, run by the noted Australian mentor, Alex Mercer, gave Paterson deeper insight to the game. He learnt of the theory of the game and a study of a book, “The Inner Game of Golf,” stressed the importance of the mental thinking associated with the game. It has been the deep concentration of Paterson, his ice-cool temperament and utter dedication which have taken him to the top of Canterbury and New Zealand golf. He has holed many long and decisive putts in his distinguished career, with a regularity that removes any element of luck.

. “I’m meticulous in z setting up my line, when I swing as I’ve done thousands of times before. Still the end result is satisfying,” he said.

In 1982 Paterson had a dream start to the year, with titles and high finishes in four main championships within a few months. Then it was down to Invercargill for the first time with the Canterbury five-man team for the Southland invitational and the result was a Canterbury victory in the national teams’ strokeplay event.

“It didn’t mean much to me until I saw John Williamson, Geoff Saunders and Jim Lapsley, all top players, jumping with joy. I remember that the joy they got from the team win.” Paterson was soon to experience the thrill of team success and there were many other triumphs, many indivi-

dual, both for Canterbury and New Zealand. In 1983 he was runnerup in the Australian matchplay championship as a relative unknown, but he was anything but that when he returned two years later and reached the semi-finals. Seldom since 1983 has he missed New Zealand selection and the only time in the last seven years he was not the No. 1 for Canterbury at the national teams’ matchplay tournament was in 1986 when he was representing his country at the world Eisenhower Trophy tournament. His successes at home are many — the South Island championship in 1986 and 1987, the leading amateur at this year’s Southland invitational, the winner of the New Zealand Vardon Trophy some years ago.

He has won two Canterbury strokeplay championships, the 1987 provincial matchplay title, the Canterbury men’s foursomes and the New Zealand club championship with Coringa last year. He has won the Canterbury Vardon Trophy for the last four years and is determined to make it five, and was the first player to win the “Canterbury golfer of the year” award on three occasions.

In 43 matches for Canterbury at the Government Life tournament Paterson has won 29 and halved seven. “The depth of Canterbury golf has never been better,” Paterson said, adding that Canterbury had seven in the national trials for Eisenhower selection. His departure, however, will remove a vital cog in the Canterbury machine.