GOLF - Rookie bucks losing trend

There wasn't too much for Northland golfers to celebrate at the Waitomo Golf Club on Sunday, so the performance of 13-year-old Kadin Neho stood out like a beacon.
Neho bucked the trend of defeats in the quadrangular tournament against Taranaki, Auckland and Waikato to finish unbeaten from his three matches in the under-16 competition.
"Kadin was unbeaten and that was a pretty good effort, given the calibre of the opposition down there, especially as he just turned 13 the other day and he was playing some fairly match-hardened 15 and 16-year-olds," Northland manager Graeme Hill said.
Neho, playing at No2 in the under-16 team, finished with three wins from the weekend.
He was the leading light of the junior team, made up of four under-16s and four under-19s, who at least managed some parity against their opponents. They went down 3-5 to Waikato, 3-4 to Taranaki before getting thumped 1-6 by Auckland in their final match on Sunday.
The Northland seniors knew they were in for a tough weekend but only No10 Mitchell Price and No3 Gavin Welsh had wins against Waikato on Saturday morning in a 8-2 overall loss.
Lee Newman, Jack Winwood and Brad Bonnington managed wins against Taranaki in the afternoon in a 7-3 loss, with Newman, playing at No8, the only scorer in a 9-1 loss to overall winners Auckland.
"It definitely was a tough weekend but, to look on the positive side, a lot of the matches went the distance, so we weren't too far off the pace," Hill said.
The James Busby Classic at Waitangi Golf Club this weekend will give the players another chance to play some matchplay competition.
"That'll toughen them up in matchplay situations, because normally it's not until they get into interprovincial tournaments that they get to play matchplay," he said.