Golf: Where women go men must follow

Teenager Sharon Ahn won the women's strokeplay at Titirangi last month. Picture / Fotopress

Sharon Ahn and the New Zealand women did it.

Now it's the turn of the men to put the Australians in their place.

In the coming week at Palmerston North the national championships will be staged at the Manawatu Golf Club, with both the national 72-hole strokeplay and matchplay titles to be decided.

As usual a talented group of Aussie raiders will be competing against New Zealand's best.

They include three of the Australian team for the upcoming Four Nations tournament, Mitchell Brown, Marc Leishman and Michael Sim.

For the past two years Australians have won both the strokeplay and the matchplay and in the past 20 years they have won nine of the strokeplay titles and 11 of the matchplay.

Last year's championships at Taupo produced high-class finishes to both events. After 72 holes Australians Andrew McKenzie and Jarrod Lyle, Wellingtonian Dimitrios Amos and Riki Kauika from Manor Park were level on 282 after 72 holes. After playing the par-three 18th four times, McKenzie emerged as the winner.

Lyle was also in the matchplay final against Gavin Flint, who was well under the card when he won 5 and 4.

All four Australians have since turned professional, with Lyle, a leukaemia survivor, showing fine form in the Heineken Open and the New Zealand PGA.

Two top Kiwis, Bradley Iles and Mathew Holten, were absent from Taupo last year on international duty but come to this tournament with victories already in the North Island and South Island championships.

Iles has made a remarkable recovery from a head injury he suffered in the United States last year, while Holten, who won a national foursomes title back in 2001, has battled back from a form slump.

The championships are often - but not always - the springboard to a successful professional career. Sir Bob Charles won the NZ Open as an amateur in 1954 but he never won the amateur titles.

Frank Nobilo won the matchplay title at Hastings in 1978 but has never won the NZ Open while Michael Campbell has won the NZ Open and the Australian amateur but lost in the 1992 New Zealand amateur final to Richard Lee.

Phil Tataurangi won the amateur matchplay title at New Plymouth in 1993 but has yet to win the Open and Michael Long won the amateur in 1990 at Nelson and the Open at Paraparaumu in 1996.

Some very successful Australian professionals of recent times feature on the amateur championship honour roll.

Peter O'Malley, who won the NZ Open at The Grange in 1995 and has twice won the rich tournament at Clearwater in Christchurch, was New Zealand amateur champion at the Hutt in 1986.

In 1999 at Remuera two young Auckland Grammar boys, Doug Batty and Brad Heaven, shared the national foursomes title with Aussies Aaron Baddeley and Brett Rumford, who have since won professional tournaments around the world.

Ahn was 14 when she won the women's strokeplay at Titirangi last month but men's champions tend to be older.

The championships at Palmerston North begin with the national foursomes on Sunday.

The 72-hole strokeplay championship runs from Monday to Thursday with the leading 32 players to contest the matchplay championship. The 36-hole final is on Sunday, April 24.