GOLF - After 11 years, Northland seize trophy from Harbour

Northland Golf is riding on a high after its senior interprovincial team completed its first win over North Harbour since 1997.
The Double North Cup, the prize played for between Harbour and Northland senior 10-man teams every year, will take a rare break from being stored in Albany and spent last night at Northland manager Roy Pelsky's house.
Pelsky said the team knew they had an opportunity to win at Sherwood Park this weekend, with a couple of top players not available for North Harbour - but turning that chance into a win was a different story.
"I'm really ecstatic about the win, it's been a long time coming and several of our players really stood up and performed well, even better than we were expecting, right across the board," he said.
The only regret for Pelsky was the impending departure of No1 Dale Clarke to Australia next week but at least he was sent off with a good win, the manager said.
A win of any kind looked unlikely on Saturday morning when they were 1-4 down after the first round of the competition.
Only the pairing of Clarke and Tony Mayo won their match but Northland's fortunes improved in the afternoon with the reverse singles contest, with Northland winning 6-4 to narrow the deficit to just 7-8 at the end of play.
Clarke and Mayo again led the way with wins with Brad Bonnington, Bob Shirley, Jack Winwood and Lee Newman also defeating their opponents to get Northland back into the tie.
Yesterday the scales had completely turned in Northland's favour and the team had an 8-2 victory, to claim a 15-10 overall victory. Clarke, Mayo, Shirley, Winwood, Newman, Gavin Welsh, Gene Wintle and Josh Clark-Steadman were the players who cemented the win.
To add insult to Harbour's injury, the men's under-19 team won the Kevin Sharrock Trophy by beating North Harbour in their tie - for only the second time.
The competition was last won by Northland in 1997, its inaugural year, but the under-19 team were worthy 6-4 winners yesterday.
Shane Cole and Mitchell Price won one of the two four ball best ball contests, but Northland just edged their opponents in the singles and the reverse singles with two 2.5/1.5 wins.
Price won both his singles matches with Cole and Chris Alexander also scoring wins, with Cole and Mike McDonald chipping in with vital halves as well.
The men's under-16 team and the women's senior team didn't fair so well, with both teams well beaten by their North Harbour opponents.
Kadin Neho and Brook Nathan scored halves in the reverse singles on Saturday but the team's four players all lost yesterday.
The eight-strong women's team lost all their four four ball best ball games but Caroline Bon and Phoebe Perrin won the reverse singles with Sunny Nam Koon scoring a half.
Yesterday Bon was the only Northland player to record a win.
The next interprovincial series is a quadrangular series between Northland, Waikato, Taranaki and Auckland in September.