KEY POINTS:
The next seven days are significant for the country's top professionals and amateurs.
Michael Campbell, provided he doesn't do any headstands, will try to make it past the first round of the World Golf Championship Matchplay event in Arizona. The rest of our best professionals, including New Zealand number two David Smail, will try to become the first local winner of the PGA Championship since it was reconstituted at Clearwater in 2004.
Our leading amateurs, men and women, senior and junior, play Australia in the first Trans Tasman Cup at Royal Canberra on Thursday and Friday. Teams of four play for traditional trophies, the combined totals deciding the new cup.
The 5th national Mid Amateur Championship, for players aged 30 and over, is at Hokowhitu in Palmerston North. The quality and quantity of the field appear to be less than in past years. Warkworth's Michael Leeper will defend the title he won at Pukekohe last year but past winners Dean Sipson, Glen Goldfinch or Martin Tumata are not.
The PGA field is of the highest quality at any tournament in NZ.
Many of the American players are rising stars from the US second-tier Nationwide Tour trying to make the big league. But there are also veterans, including Len Mattiace who almost won a major championship four years ago. The winner of more than $6 million in 10 years on the PGA Tour, he lost a playoff to Mike Weir at the 2003 Masters. Eight months later he injured both knees in a skiing accident and his career hasn't been the same since.
North American Nationwide Tour players seldom do well in their two tournaments Down Under. Canadian Jim Rutledge's win last year was an exception and might be unkindly described as a fluke considering that he holed out from the fairway for eagle on the 17th and then birdied the 18th in his final round. But he still took fewer shots than the rest. The pattern at Clearwater is that those used to playing in wind are usually to the fore and more often than not that means Australians.
Fifteen New Zealanders are in the field with possibly more qualifying before the start on Thursday. A New Zealand name on the New Zealand PGA trophy for the first time since Frank Nobilo in 1987 would delightful. Realistically, the chances are not high.
The Australians will be favoured to win the Trans Tasman Cup too. With foursomes and singles on each of the two days in the four sections, there are 48 matches at Royal Canberra. The New Zealand women won against Australia in their last contest in 2005 and the junior women lost by only a couple of points last year. So they should be competitive but the men haven't held the Sloan Morpeth Trophy since 1992 or won the junior international since 2000. Much will depend on James Gill and Danny Lee if New Zealand is to have a chance of success in the men's matches.
But at least there'll be a New Zealand winner in the Mid Amateur.
