Amatter of survival for our leading golfers
Golfers in their various guises have to get by and stock their larders like everyone else. Two such gents in contrasting employment fought out the New Zealand Super 6s final at the Manawatu¯ Golf Club on Sunday.
Masterton electrician, Kerry Mountcastle, was the victor when he got the ball to rip back closer to the pin on the 93-metre playoff hole than did professional Josh Geary.
There were 10 years in age between them, and in these infectious times, Mountcastle is probably as well off on wages as most of our domestic professionals. He declared afterwards that from 8am on Monday he’d be back installing solar panels.
Many lesser players than Mountcastle have turned professional only to discover if the roubles don’t roll in, it can be a spartan existence unless they solicit outside backing or part-time work.
On Sunday, Mountcastle became the first amateur to win a professional event at Manawatu¯ since they began in 2013. He’s been a New Zealand amateur champion, has now won two Charles Tour events and played in the world Eisenhower Trophy event in Ireland in 2018, with all bills paid.
Geary meanwhile, now aged 36, has long been among the cream of New Zealand’s domestic professional crop. Sunday’s was his third runner-up finish at Manawatu¯; he was also second to Michael Hendry in the 2015 and 2016 Lawnmaster Classics.
The $11,000 which Geary collected as the leading pro would have been gold as he must sustain himself in his career. He has played around the world for 11 professional wins, had one season on the European Tour and, if not for the evil coronavirus, would be playing in Kenya and Qatar and on the European Challenge Tour.
Meanwhile, the golf club’s two resident New Zealand Falcons, as in raptor birds, have aggressively denuded much of the bird population on the course and, when nesting, attack annoyed golfers.
On Sunday they were offended by the presence of a new flier on their patch and scrambled to attack, only to discover it was a whirring drone being used to film the action.
There was an amazing run on Sunday when Auckland amateur Cameron Harlock, back from North Texas University, birdied the first five of his six holes in winning the third-fourth playoff.
Boys’ High’s most famous were multi-skilled
When Palmerston North Boys’ High School kicked off their Sports Hall of Fame last year, those inducted had to have retired from their sports.
Black Sticks hockey player Nick Wilson filled the bill last year. However, since then he has come out of retirement in case the Olympics are held, but says he will retire after them, which will make him compliant again.
The school once commented that ‘‘if he chooses not to come back to cricket it would be a huge waste of talent’’. Hockey utilised those talents because at the second induction on Friday we heard he went on to score 138 goals for the school 1st XI and 76 for the Black Sticks in 170 internationals.
He played for New Zealand against South Korea as a 17-year-old while at school.
The others inducted were tennis player
Eskell ‘‘Buster’’ Andrews, All Black Bob Burgess, cricketer Mathew Sinclair, squash player Don Burmeister, Olympic Games sports psychologist Gary Hermansson, footballer Stu Jacobs, freestyle motocross rider Levi Sherwood and cricketer Bryan Yuile.
On Friday, a clean-cut Sherwood was far from the lad with the flyingmullet when riding at great heights around the globe. Rather than breaking more bones, he is now more sensibly building motocross bikes and working on an electric motorbike. At school, he scored 92 per cent inmetalwork.
Most of the older gents inducted excelled at many more sports than those in today’s world.
Burgess also starred in tennis and athletics and broke the school’s 880 yards record. In his unbeaten 1st XV of 1966 were fellow All Blacks John Loveday and Ian Stevens.
Burmeister was also fleet of foot on the athletics track before going on to squash fame and three world championships. In the 1950s Hermansson was also an athlete, a swimmer and a hockey player besides playing 1st XI cricket and 1st XV rugby. As a cricketer he represented Manawatu¯ while at school.
All Whites player Stu Jacobs was picked from school for the under-19 World Cup squad in 1982 and later coached with Hibernian in Scotland.
Yuile is in his 80th year and lives in Wairoa. He excelled at every sport, was a boxing and athletics champion and played cricket for Central Districts while at school, a rare feat indeed.