Wellsford see off challenge in style

Wellsford golfers are celebrating seeing off one of their strongest challenges for the Le Garth Trophy this year as they beat the Whangarei Golf Club 7.5-2.5.

The matchplay trophy is always difficult to wrest away from the holder, but for a good part of the competition yesterday it was very close.

"Halfway through the matches, the result was still well and truly in the balance, but when it came down to the final few holes they ran away with it," Whangarei club captain Nira Kingi said.

Northland representative Kadin Neho won the number one match, beating the home team's Darren Ashwell but their No2, Graham Rhead, beat Neho's dad Wiremu, to level things up. Kingi at No3 took the lead for the visitors, beating Wellsford skipper Wayne Gravatt, before Kevin Mitchell squared the scores again with a win over William Morunga.

Wellford's Jason Rhead, Alex Harvey and Stephen Gravatt had wins over John Gorden, Alan Fraser and Dave Austin to give the holders a handy lead, but it was Craig Radford's fightback against Whangarei's David Wright that proved to be the turning point in the fixture.

Radford was five shots down against Wright but fought back for a half on the final hole.

That was enough to deliver the result to the holders before Lincoln Smith and Butch Chadwick won their matches over Pete Crowley and Kevin Sadgrove respectively.

Kingi said Wellsford had home-ground advantage but still had to play good golf to retain the trophy.

"It's a hard trophy to win but you've still got to turn up on the day and that's what they did. They played really well, so fair play to them, they deserved to win," he said.