DALE Clarke was keen to put the record straight. Especially when the phone calls started coming with people on the line offering their commiserations.
So this is how it is, straight from the mouth of the Northland representative golf captain: "We beat Manawatu yesterday."
Considering the the NZ Golf website said the
opposite after the first day of the inter-provincial tournament in Tauranga, that is quite an important piece of information.
"I have heard from a couple of people asking us what happened. But the website got it wrong in the results. We beat Manawatu in the morning and we should have beaten Waikato in the afternoon game but a couple of things just went against us when it mattered," Clarke said.
"But we got enough from (yesterday's) games to have a bit of confidence playing Canterbury and North Harbour (today). Canterbury are strong and North Harbour are looking good, but we are quite upbeat about playing them. We reckon we might just give the both a surprise," he said.
That confidence is no more evident than in Clarke's own form at the Mt Maunganui Golf Club. Clarke was eight under the par for the day, and hoping some of his self-belief would rub off on his team-mates today.
Clarke led the charge as Northland beat Manawatu 3 and 2 and continued his hot form against Waikato. But even with Clarke burning the course up, Northland went down 2-3 in the afternoon. But Northland took Waikato down to the wire, international Richard Wright grabbing the win on the final hole over Northland's Gary-John Hill.
In other games, white hot favourites Bay of Plenty received a chill before sneaking to a 3-1 win over lowly Southland.
Wellington, with a win and a half, lead section one from Southland, Hawke's Bay, Aorangi and Bay of Plenty (who had the morning bye) each with one win. Taranaki also boast a win and a half to lead section two from North Harbour, Canterbury, Waikato (who all had a bye) and Northland with one win apiece.
Title hopefuls Wellington had to share the honours with the under-strength Auckland combination in the first round surprise.
There are two further rounds today.
