An early frost followed by a sunny, calm day couldn't have been better to decide the winners in the finals of the 2012 Junior Pennants Competition at The Pines Golf Course.
The Hikurangi Hornets were no match for Wellsford on the day with wins to Jamie Thomas, Aaron Mist andDaniel Boyd for the southern club. Only Wirihana Williams came through for "Hika" with a win against Matthew Thomas.
However, when it came to support from their home club, the Hornets had it in the bag. There must have been at least a dozen red-and-black shirts to watch them finish on the 18th green. It was great to see such strong support for junior golf.
Bay of Islands-Kerikeri and Whangarei Girls were first up at the Pines to play off for third and fourth place.
Misfortune befell the Bay side with two of their team unavailable (one due to a football injury the day before; the other sick). Team managers for Whangarei Girls allowed a substitute and Taimana Ngakuru played in No 3 position - and won.
Taylor Gill and Jodi Macalister fought out the No 1 spot with Taylor coming home with the win. Adam Brierley had to play in the No 2 spot and found the going a bit hard against Soktaera Sean.
The end result was a draw and a sudden death play-off for the No 1's. Both teed off the Par 3 first hole - Jodi's ball landing to the far right of the green and Taylor, although right of the pin had a shorter putt. Jodi putted up close to the hole - Taylor unfortunately missed on his next shot - not so the Northern Wairoa star junior - it went in to secure the Whangarei Girls Team 3rd spot.
Final results: Wellsford 10 pts - winners; Hikurangi Hornets 6 pts - runners-up; Whangarei Girls 8 pts - 3rd place; Bay of Island 8 pts - 4th place.
The new Junior Pennants season will start in February following a review of the format and some possible changes to the rules in an effort to encourage more of our better juniors to stay in this competition and get the number of teams participating back up.
From 13 teams last year, there were only seven entrants this year and the aim is to get back to having two divisions to keep travel to a minimum for players and parents.
