A ride almost as sweet as the destination . . . that is how Chris Taewa (right) describes winning the Gisborne Motors Barns-Graham Cup men's pairs title alongside his good mate and Poverty Bay greenkeeper Collin Jeffrey on Sunday. They beat Phil Allan and Chris Shaw 6 and 5 in the handicap matchplay final.
Photo / Paul Rickard
A ride almost as sweet as the destination . . . that is how Chris Taewa (right) describes winning the Gisborne Motors Barns-Graham Cup men's pairs title alongside his good mate and Poverty Bay greenkeeper Collin Jeffrey on Sunday. They beat Phil Allan and Chris Shaw 6 and 5 in the handicap matchplay final.
Photo / Paul Rickard
Golf scribe Chris Taewa has spent more than 40 years chasing the dimpled sphere and is the second-best golfer in his family (wife and two-time senior women’s club champ Rochelle is No 1). After he and good mate Collin Jeffrey finished the Barns-Graham Cup pairs matchplay championship as the last men standing, Taewa gets to wax lyrical about ... himself
I can’t remember the first time I played in the Poverty Bay Golf Club’s covetedBarns-Graham Cup.
It was last century some time and clearly I didn’t do any good.
I remember playing alongside Ron Lightfoot in the 1990s. We lost on the 19th after Ronnie got the yips, and my lasting memory was him tossing his putter in the air after missing a tiddler to stay in the match, and the club snapping cleanly as it landed. “Fitting,” I said as I patted my grieving mate on the back.
The late Mike Griffiths was another BG partner. A ballerina with carpal tunnel could throw the ball further than Griff could hit it, but he had a magnetic personality and scratch-handicap wit that almost superseded our journey to inevitable defeat.
The BG has a history of long-lasting partnerships to this day. Bill Allen and the late Roy Skuse were classic examples of that - playing in it together for decades and winning it twice, over 30 years apart.
Not me. I made the decision I was going to change partners every year. I enjoy playing with different people, having new experiences. Though the way I performed in some of those, my partners were probably happy to see the back of me.
That policy didn’t go down too well with Lee Pollitt in 2003. After getting bowled out of the BG Cup proper, we were relegated to the Bryan Cup subsidiary, made the final and had an epic 25-hole battle with Neville Jenkins and Jeremy McLean which ended in the dark and a joint decision to share the trophy. It was Polly’s first-ever club tournament, and he still has the results board standing in pride of place in his Fox Street man-shed.
Dugald Hamilton, Jason Phillips, Mark “Tuffers” Trufitt, Pete Anderson were among the others to have the BG Cup pleasure of my company before Lee “Pikey” Hewson became the first person to pair with me for consecutive years.
We made the semifinals twice. Pikey had to play in one of those on his own a few years back and last year we crumbled at the swings of juniors Zach Rolls and Marcus Gray.
Pikey had to pull the pin this year. He was off overseas on holiday so a mate suggested I ask my long-time cobber Collin Jeffrey.
“Don’t you remember the last time we played in it,” he asked when I put it to him.
“I don’t even remember playing in it with you. How’d I go?” I replied.
“Everywhere,” Jeffrey said. “You went to places I never knew existed on the golf course.”
Despite that inauspicious history, a bad knee and having only played two rounds of 18 holes for the year, Jeffrey agreed.
The rest. Yep. History.
Having survived a first-round 18-hole scare from one-man band Simon Jeune (partner Rowan Clark had Covid), we saw off 2017 champions Neil Mackie and Paul Mullooly (17th), then Bill Allen and son Mike (also 17) to set up a revenge-seeking semi against Glenn Morley and Gray Clapham.
Morley and Clapham had twice eliminated Pikey and Taewa in recent years. It wasn’t to be a third over Taewa although they fought back valiantly from five-down with six holes to play before falling on 17.
The putters of Phil Allan and Chris Shaw (who won the BG Cup with Scott Crago in 2013) ran hot in their 15th-hole semifinal win over 32nd and bottom qualifiers Al Jennings and George Brown.
But 24 hours is a long time in golf.
A hole as big as a bucket one day was smaller than a thimble the next. Allan (off a 26-handicap) and Shaw (20) couldn’t buy a putt in the final and with six-handicapper Jeffrey saving his best to last, Taewa (11) only had to chime in when needed, and hands were shaken on the far corner of the course - the 13th.
To add your name to trophy a steeped in 73 years of history, alongside some of the club’s most famous names, is special.
The BG may not attract the numbers of its heyday, when well over 100 pairs competed and the top 64 pairs qualified (it is 32 nowadays), but it has retained its aura.
Outside of club championship crowns, this is the one you want to win.
For myself, though, the best part of it - alongside the rarity of playing some decent golf this year and finally getting C. Taewa in gold lettering on the honours boards - was doing it with a good mate and the company we shared along the way.
It was a ride that was almost as sweet as the destination.
Poverty Bay
Tim Sherratt and Peter Humphreys did the next best thing to winning the Gisborne Motors Barns-Graham Cup men’s pairs at the weekend. They won the Bryan Cup.
The Bryan is a subsidiary title for losers of the first and second rounds of matchplay in the BG Cup series.
Sherratt and Humphreys, after seeing off Andy Abrahams and Mike Callaghan in the Saturday semis, proved too good for Bill Simpson and Stephen Francks in the handicap matchplay final. They won four and three.
The Barns-Graham Plate for non-qualifiers was decided in spectacular fashion. Richard Foon, partnered with Neville West, chipped in for birdie on the 18th to seal victory over Cliff Poole and Vance Richardson.
Noreen Johnson and Jenny Alderson are the Nan Carmine Cup women’s pairs champions, beating Rose Pettigrew and Leigh Fletcher last Wednesday.
Marg Colebourne won the Oman Cup women’s matchplay title recently. She defeated Janet Muir in the final.
SUNDAY - Gisborne Motors Barns-Graham Cup men’s pairs finals, Barns-Graham Cup: Chris Taewa/Collin Jeffrey def Phil Allan/Chris Shaw 6 and 5.
Bryan Cup: Tim Sherratt/Peter Humphreys def Bill Simpson/Stephen Francks 4 and 3.
Sisters Noreen Johnson and Jenny Alderson won the Nan Carmine Cup 9-hole women's four-ball best-ball matchplay title at Poverty Bay last week. They beat another sister act, Rose Pettigrew and Leigh Fletcher, in the final.
Waitama Crowley is on the way up, or down, if you’re looking at it from a handicap perspective.
Rookie golfer Crowley combined with father and greenkeeper Bernie to claim the scalps of a couple of notable club members in the first round of the President’s Cup pairs on Sunday.
The Crowleys defeated club captain Grant Hornblow and Tegal Smith - though they will have far bigger fish to fry as the series continues.
Daryll McKinlay turned in Jekyll-Hyde performance in winning the men’s stableford on countback from David Waihaki.
McKInlay had nines of 54 and 42 in his 37-point haul.
Paipan Denigan and Maraea Wesche shared the honours in the women’s competition.
