Golf: Home-grown talent in strong contention to take out Open

By CHRIS RATTUE

The New Zealand Open has lost its elder statesman, leaving the way for the genuine contenders to take the opening round spotlight today for what has been billed as the "homecoming Open."

Sir Bob Charles will not be swishing at all this week after withdrawing last night with an arm injury.

Charles, who played his first Open half-a-century ago, carried just a putter during junior buddy day yesterday, and then decided to pull out.

Tiger Woods-free, there has been a sense of calm around the Auckland Golf Club at Middlemore this week for what might become a Kiwi shootout.

With the forthright Greg Turner missing, the most controversial character is the course where a field loaded with New Zealand's best - apart from the serious exceptions of Turner, Craig Perks and Steve Alker - will do battle.

Michael Campbell, David Smail, Matthew Lane, Michael Long and Grant Waite are previous Kiwi winners in the line-up.

Yet while Peter Thomson's alterations to the course are often described as controversial, only Campbell has taken a swish at it. Maybe others are holding their fire.

The New Zealanders should command centre stage early on while the Australians - who include Wayne Grady, the only winner of a major in the field after Charles' withdrawal - sort out who among them will move into contention.



Other Australians include former champions Craig Jones, Lucas Parsons and the Auckland-based Peter Fowler.

Phil Tataurangi, Peter Senior (Australia) and new professional Eddie Lee tee off at 8.10am, followed by a trio including Campbell, with Frank Nobilo and Fowler next.

The leading Kiwis are hardly primed early in the season.

Campbell is in the middle of a six-week break - he shot four over the card playing with a friend at Titirangi this week.



Tataurangi said the Hawaiian tournament and this Open would get rid of "rust." Nobilo is battling a back complaint that prevents him playing for long stretches.

Waite wants to re-launch his career here, and Smail has had a month's break following his best year in Japan, during which he won the Japan and Casio World Opens.

While the golfers have noted patches on the couch grass fairways, only Campbell has been critical.

"It's not a course I enjoy playing and I don't really agree they're good changes," he said.

"Obviously, I've played out of the Road Hole bunker at St Andrews and it's pretty sacred. The carbon copy [Middlemore's 17th] is never as good as the original.

"But it's the last hole that really sticks out. It's just ridiculous. There's all these lumps down the right-hand side of the green which is really unfair. It's a very weird design."

Nobilo said Middlemore was "as good a course as I've ever seen in Auckland." He believed about 16-under would win.

Waite, home for the first time in four years, reckoned 14-under might do the trick. Prospects would change if wind, dry conditions and pin placements toughened the course.

"It's nothing like the last time I was here," Waite said.

"The layout is the same, but it was very firm and fast in 1997.

"I'd expect a lot lower scores this time.

"I'm used to playing the softer conditions in America, but the wind here can change everything."

Smail won at the adjacent Grange two years ago, but this will be his first Middlemore tournament. He thought Tataurangi and Campbell might be frontrunners.

"I've just had a look at Phil and he's swinging it well ... and Cambo always looks good. He could take two years off and still come out and brush one off the very first tee."