Golf: Bay flogged but remain upbeat

Russell Mitchell, of Maraenui Golf Club, is the top seed at the Interprovincials golf in New Plymouth. PHOTO/FILE

It was back down to earth with a thud for the Hawke's Bay senior men at the premier men's amateur golf teams' tournament in New Plymouth yesterday.

The Bay slumped 5-0 to North Harbour at the Ngamutu Golf Club yesterday afternoon after a morning's bye on the heels of a hard-fought victory over Aorangi and halving with Auckland on day one.

"It wasn't easy because North Harbour's a good side," said Bay selector/manager Steffan Hepburn.

"Even though we had two or three heavy losses in that 5-nil the guys still played well."

Hepburn said in the last few holes in the other games the players lost their way a little bit.
Russell Mitchell lost to Jason Gulasekharam 3/1, Dallas Williams lost to Cameron Jones 4/3, Carlos Tawera lost to Changi-Gi Lee 6/5, Maddison Noakes lost to Mark Hutson 4/3, Mako Thompson lost to Jake Meenhorst 2 up.

"That's the nature of golf," he said, as the players shifted their mindset to the "East coast derby" against Poverty Bay East Coast this morning before all teams have a compulsory afternoon off.

"It's probably a must win," Hepburn said, reflecting on what he considered to be a pretty good draw for the rest of the week considering North Harbour still have to play Waikato and Bay of Plenty.

BOP and North Harbour tee up against each other today so one of them will close the chapter to their fairy-tale run.

Hawke's Bay have Manawatu/Whanganui and BOP left tomorrow.

"Realistically we're still in with a good chance of making the semis. We might need the odd result to go our way but we have to look after own games first," Steffan said.

The fickle nature of the undulating course, skirting the coastline, makes it a "risk-rewarding" one with wind making it testing.

Hepburn said it was a lottery with weather dictating terms but "the worst conditions the better because it just levels the playing field".

Waikato, BOP and North Harbour boast an unblemished run to date but the squeeze is on because they are in the same pool and only two will survive the cull when the dust settles tomorrow.

Waikato, in the hunt for a treble on the trot, have made short work of Aorangi, Poverty Bay East Coast and Auckland in division one.

Canterbury are perched on the top rung of division two after overwhelming Tasman 4-1 and claiming a halve against southern rivals Otago late in the day to establish a 1.5-point.

Wellington and Otago have yet to concede a match so they have a stake in the semifinals and theior impending face-off tomorrow morning may decide the runners-up in in division two.