Golf: Left-hander has perfect pedigree for tilt at title

By BOB PEARCE

If you are a New Zealander trying to make your mark on the golf scene, it apparently helps to be a left-hander or from Manawatu.

Of our nine victories on the elite United States PGA Tour, five have come from the left-handed Bob Charles and two from Manawatu players Grant Waite and Craig Perks.

The trend continued last month. Perks had his famous win in The Players Championship, while left-hander Gareth Paddison captured the Otago Classic.

So Tim Wilkinson, who is a left-hander and from Manawatu, must surely have the perfect pedigree for success in the 100th New Zealand amateur championships, which begin at the Auckland Golf Club's Middlemore course tomorrow.

The 23-year-old from Palmerston North also has the form to put himself among the favourites after winning the North Island championship and the Southland Invitational last month.

And when the national selectors come to choose their three-man team for the world championships in Malaysia in October, his is likely to be one of the first names on the list.

At a time when you can be old at 17 in the leading ranks of amateur golfers, Wilkinson stands out for not having been a boy wonder.

"I suppose you could say I was a late bloomer," he says. "I started playing with my dad and older brother when I was about 12, but I was small for my age.

"I got down to single figures when I was 15, but I never won a boys' title and I wasn't in any national junior teams or anything like that."

National exposure came suddenly, and in typically low-key fashion, at the national championships in Christchurch in 2000.

It was another Eisenhower Trophy selection year and the focus was on the candidates. But while the favoured players were blown away in the tough conditions for the final round of the strokeplay championship, Wilkinson held his game together to win the title on the demanding Christchurch Golf Club course.

He was never going to be in that Eisenhower team, but when he graduated to the New Zealand team, he quickly made his mark.

He has won in Singapore and Malaysia, lost to Paddison in the semifinals of the Canadian Amateur and was second in the Asia Pacific Championship.

Back home he has won the South Island and Lawnmaster titles, and in the past two years he has lost only one game at the Tower interprovincial tournament.

His individual win at the Southland Invitational last month inspired a surprise Manawatu team victory.

And in the New Zealand Open at Paraparaumu in January he finished as third amateur, at one-under along with Perks.

Wilkinson may not be the flashiest of golfers, but he has one key ingredient for success: "I just don't like losing."

The Eisenhower world amateur is a team strokeplay event, so for many in the field at Middlemore the 72 holes of strokeplay to be played on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are the most important part of the championships.

But the matchplay title, which will be decided in a 36-hole final on April 21, carries great prestige.

The defending strokeplay champion is Rotorua teenager Sam Hunt, who won when he was 16. The matchplay champion is Ben Gallie from Dunedin.

Both are contenders for the Eisenhower team, along with Eddie Lee from Canterbury and Waikato's Mathew Holten and Brad Shilton.

Among the former champions entered are David Somervaille and Chris Johns from the home club and Australian Andrew Duffin, one of 12 players from across the Tasman.

The amateur championships were first played in 1893, but were suspended for the two world wars. This is the first time they have been staged at Middlemore since 1955 when Stuart Jones won the first of his seven national matchplay titles.

In the meantime, the NZ Open has been played twice on the course, with victories for Ian Baker-Finch and Greg Turner. The Open will be played there again in January.