Snr Pennant back
The 2018 Men’s Pennants got under way last Sunday with the first round matches played at Waverley and Kaitake. This year sees the reintroduction of the Senior Pennant competition, replacing the Senior Invitational Pennant.
Eight teams from seven clubs are playing in this year’s event. As with the handicap pennant the teams will play singles and fourball concurrently over 18 holes. The senior pennant is not a straight gross matchplay with golfers playing off a half handicap against each other and the maximum allowed handicap index for the competition will be 10. Last weekend’s results at Waverley saw New Plymouth White defeat Manaia 4-2 and Te Ngutu beat Manukorihi by the same margin. At Kaitake, Inglewood and New Plymouth Blue finished tied up 3-3, whilst Fitzroy caused a bit of an upset defeating Westown 6-0.
This year’s Handicap Pennant also has a couple of changes with all teams now playing across Taranaki rather than in a North and Taranaki wide zone. The biggest change is that all golfers will receive strokes on the stroke holes that they are allocated a stroke, effectively meaning that the hole will be won by the golfer with the best net.
With 20 teams split in to four divisions of five there will be two ‘‘cross-over’’ matches each week to ensure all teams play five matches in the round robin. In the case of clubs that have 2 teams in the competition the two teams will play each other on their home course.
At Waverley the host team started their defence with a convincing 8-1 win against Patea in the cross-over tie. In Division 1, Inglewood1 crushed Fitzroy1 8-1 and Westown1 defeated Tumahu
61⁄2-21⁄2. In Division 2 Inglewood2 also had the upper hand against Fitzroy2 winning 6-3, and Pungarehu beat Westown 2 61⁄2-21⁄2.
At Kaitake the cross-over tie saw Kaitake2 defeat Kaitake1
51⁄2-31⁄2. Both Te Ngutu and Manukorihi teams won their respective matches, Te Ngutu1 beating Eltham 61⁄2-21⁄2 in division 3 and Te Ngutu 2 comfortably beating Eltham 7-2. Manukorihi1 eased past Waitara 8-1 in division 3 and Manukorihi2 beat Manaia 7-2.