Successful defence of pennant title
Opunake successfully defended their mid-week women’s pennant title at the Stratford Golf Club on Monday.
The team of Ann-Marie Siciliano, Carol Hill, Joanne Cathie, Diane Williams, Wendy Vickers and Marg Wellington, beat Patea in a closely fought final 31⁄ 21⁄ in the afternoon to make it back-to-back wins.
In the morning semifinals, Opunake were too strong for Te Ngutu, winning comfortably 41⁄ 11⁄ with Patea also recording a comfortable win against Urenui by the same margin. The play-off for third proved to be the closest contest of the day with Te Ngutu and Urenui finishing 3-3 after 18 holes, with Urenui winning a putt-off.
To help boost numbers for the finals day, organisers invited clubs to enter teams of three to play in an 18 hole best two of three stableford competition.
Westown One finished first with 80 points, with a Fitzroy team finishing second. ❚ Fitzroy Golf Club held its men’s match play finals last Saturday. Brian Rowland successfully defended his senior title, overcoming Paul Turner 2/1 in hard fought contest which Turner had led after 18 holes.
In the intermediate final, Clint McKenzie-Nicholas proved too strong for Mike Earley, winning 8/7. The junior final proved the closest of the day with the lead changing a number of times before Mike Garvey won two of last thee holes to win 1 up against Floyd King on the 36th hole. ❚ The 2018 Senior Invitational Pennant competition begins this Sunday at Ngamotu. As in previous years, players will play in six teams. However, this year organisers have opted to reduce the teams to four players to ensure adequate cover when people are unavailable.
Last year’s winners, the Pita Pit Pirates will once again be led by Mark Kennard and Andrew Searle, although Kennard will be unavailable this weekend.
On paper, the Taranaki Golf Academy team of Fletcher Broderick, Ethan Jones, Monte Burmester and Josh Morris look likely to be the team to beat.
The Golf Zone Gators will have the services of Kerry Otene and Ben Joseph at No 1 and 2 and will be a strong combination. The Jennian Homes Hornets will include Sam Jones back from college in the US and fresh from his victory at the North Island Long Drive Competition in the Bay of Plenty.
Taranaki Golf Centre Pumas who face the Gators this weekend will be boosted by having three New Plymouth members in their team including Zach Lewis and Colin Heyes. The Revital Fertiliser Coasters will have Aarun Langton, Brook Gray and Joseph Doyle this season. Langton and Gray are unavailable this weekend.