High hopes for Kiwi hat-trick

Though the field contains the likes of Americans Billy Mayfair, Chip Beck, Australians Peter Senior, Peter O'Malley, Peter Lonard, and Swede Michael Jonzon, there are high hopes of a hat-trick of homegrown victories in the New Zealand Open golf championship. Even without their leading golfers Frank Nobilo and Greg Turner, the New Zealand professionals can mount a strong challenge when the first round tees off at the Formosa Auckland Country Club today. Michael Long, in 1996, and Turner last year broke the sequence of four successive victories by Australians between 1993 and 1995. Leading the Kiwi charge are the 1992 champion Grant Waite and Philip Tataurangi, who earn their living on the tough USPGA Tour, European Tour players Michael Campbell and Stephen Scahill, and the more consistent Paul Devenport.