Golf: Solid start by golfers in teams event

New Zealand were well placed to challenge the leaders after the opening round of the Eisenhower Trophy world amateur men's teams golf championships in Germany yesterday.

The New Zealand quartet were in a share of eighth place, nine strokes behind joint leaders Canada and the United States.

The New Zealanders carded an even-par 216 on the Arnold Palmer-designed course at the Sporting Club of Berlin.

Gareth Paddison, who was making his Eisenhower debut, was the best of the New Zealanders, his one-under 71 bettering the 72 by Richard Best and the 73s of Carl Brooking and Reon Sayer.

Though New Zealand coach Mal Tongue realised his side did not harm their title aspirations yesterday, he was disappointed that they were not another three to five shots closer to the leaders.

"It was the most disappointed I've walked off a golf course in years," Tongue said.

"We're a good team and the players played better than the scores indicated.

"We had an opportunity to be at least three-under, but we had a couple of double bogeys on the closing holes."

Those blemishes - by Sayer on the par-four 17th, Paddison on the par-five 15th and Brooking on the last - were caused by errant tee shots.

Sayer was left with an unplayable lie behind a tree.

Paddison clawed a shot back by sinking a birdie putt on the 17th, but the earlier wasted strokes irked Tongue.

"If you want to be a winning team you can't afford to have that," Tongue said.

"If you want to be a champion you have to concentrate for 18 holes, you can't afford to make these types of mistakes.

"They were in good spirits and took it on the chin.

" I was the one who took it the worst.

"The thing is, we really have to convert our opportunities if we want to challenge the sides in front of us, " he said.

The leaderboard had a truly global look, with South Africa in third, four shots behind Canada and the US, followed by India, Australia, Great Britain and Ireland, and Denmark.

France and Colombia matched New Zealand's score, achieved on the easier of the two courses being used for the championship.

Best and Brooking overcame jittery starts, but Best, who was two over after two holes, never got on top of his game, his six birdies being cancelled out by six bogeys.

"Overall the lads played pretty solid but the scores didn't reflect that," Tongue said.

"It was an eight out of 10 performance but six out of 10 scoring performance."

- NZPA