Golf: Milestone beckoning Nicholson

Wellington golfer Sarah Nicholson has the chance to better the performance of New Zealand's top professional, Lynnette Brooky, when she plays in the national strokeplay championship at Muriwai.

Last week, Nicholson, 21, became the first New Zealand golfer to win the Australian strokeplay championship since Brooky at the New South Wales Golf Club in Sydney in 1993.

Brooky, also from Wellington, went on to win the New Zealand matchplay crown at the New Plymouth Golf Club that year, but she was pipped for the strokeplay title by Pam Sowden from North Harbour.

Nicholson will be joined by Aucklanders Natasha Krishna and Sharon Ahn, the reigning national strokeplay champion, in the New Zealand team for the Queen Sirikit Cup at Royal Adelaide in April.

She won the national matchplay title at Wanganui in 2004 and was a member of the New Zealand team who beat Australia in the Tasman Cup at Titirangi in November.

But the past two months have seen her playing some of the best golf of her life.

Last month she won the international event at Lake Macquarie across the Tasman and her come-from-behind victory in the Australian strokeplay at The Lakes course in Sydney was stunning.

She started the final round of the 72-hole tournament five shots off the pace but closed with a six-under-par 68 to win by one shot. The final round included two eagles, three birdies and a bogey.

The first eagle came on a par-five where her length off the tee left her with a seven-iron second to the green and a short putt.

On the 240m par-four 17th she hit a five-wood to the fringe and chipped in.

She holed a long putt for a par on the last to clinch the win.

"I didn't even know I was leading," she said.

"I was thinking of doing well for the team so the individual title was a bit of a bonus."

The New Zealand team of Nicholson, Ahn and Penny Newbrook won the inaugural Ross Herbert Perpetual Trophy against combinations from Australia, Canada and South Africa.

Nicholson is coached by Kevin Smith and is a member of the Hutt and Wainuiomata clubs. She began playing as a 13-year-old, tagging along with her dad at Wainuiomata.

She has always been a strong hitter, but she acknowledges that her course management has improved and contributed to her good form.

"I'm confident to hit driver on those holes where length matters and that allows me to hit wedge into many par-fours. I'm trying to hit more greens in regulation. I went through a patch last year when I was only hitting seven or eight per round, but now it's like 14.

"The Lakes is fairly short so if you kept it straight you could really go low."

There was also plenty of wind on most days, something Nicholson has learnt to handle around Wellington. She has never played at Muriwai on Auckland's west coast, but she likes links courses and will be trying to keep any marauding Aussies at bay from March 9-12.

The Aussies hold the New Zealand men's amateur titles and Korean-Aussie teenager Amy Yang, who this month won the ANZ Ladies Masters professional tournament on the Gold Coast, grabbed the New Zealand matchplay title in December.

Men's and women's golf have a unified national body in Australia, but old habits die hard at some of the clubs.

When the Australian women's strokeplay championship was staged at The Lakes Club in Sydney last week, competitors completed 72 holes over four days. But they had to surrender the course on the Wednesday in the middle to the men.