Golf: Keh sisters create history in NZ amateur final

Munchin Keh hugs her sister Wenyung Keh during the final hole of the New Zealand Amateur Golf Championships at Mount Maunganui. Photo / APN

Lost in the record-breaking feats of Vaughan McCall at the New Zealand Amateur was a moment of golf history that might never happen again.

For the first time in the 119 years of the championship, two sisters contested the New Zealand Amateur final and it was a match befitting of the occasion.

Auckland teenagers Munchin Keh, 19, and Wenyung Keh, 15, are best friends who play golf together at their home club Titirangi, formerly Pakuranga. They found themselves in the unusual position of playing off to be crowned national champion.

Noted women's golf historian Sue Bunt was pretty sure it was the first time it had happened.

"I'm certain it has never happened from 1908-2005 having double-checked all the match play grids for those years which NZ Golf has in the archives and we know it hasn't happened since then," said Bunt.

"For 1893-1907 there are no official records, only an incomplete assortment of newspaper clippings, so it's not possible to be absolutely certain. But had it ever happened, it surely would've been documented and we'd know about it."

Barely a word was spoken between the two players throughout more than eight hours of golf, with Wenyung saying: "We are competitors while we are in the tournament but off the course we are sisters and friends again. We're not talking out there. We will talk afterwards."

And so it played out. The pair traded birdies throughout the 36 holes at the Mount Maunganui Golf Club and neither player enjoyed a margin of ascendancy of more than 3up throughout the match.

The older sister Munchin made a decisive move with a birdie on the 15th to go dormy three and looked to put the title beyond her sister's grasp. But it was far from over. Munchin gifted her younger sister the 16th and then Wenyung made a fine par save on 17 to stay alive.

Standing on the 18th tee the pair who had been inseparable all day remained that way with Wenyung needing to win the hole to force it to a playoff. Munchin killed that idea when she delivered one of the shots of the championship.

From 150m out, in the rough on the left of the 18th fairway, the slightly built Munchin hit her approach to within a metre for a grandstand finish.

Surely that was it. But Wenyung wasn't done and drained her birdie putt from 20 feet. Munchin coolly sunk hers from close range and the first time two sisters had contested the National Championship had a fitting ending.