Repeat golfing title feat shouldn’t take another 63 years
It was a stretch to recall when a Manawatū sports team last won a national title. Possibly when the Palmerston North Panthers won the national superstock teams champs title in 2018, their 18th to go with five times runners-up.
The Manawatū Turbos won the NPC Championship in 2014, although that wasn’t the top title.
So when the Manawatū-Whanganui women’s golfers won the national interprovincial title last Saturday after a week’s work at Paraparaumu Beach and Waikanae, it was worth celebrating.
They did it by knocking over the big guns from Auckland and North Harbour.
Golfing-wise, Man-Wang – as they’re colloquially known – hadn’t won the interprovincial since 1960. That year, the victorious players appeared to be all out of the Manawatū Golf Club – Jean Mangan (later the great Jean Whitehead), New Zealand rep Aileen Nash, Cath Collier, Betty Anderson and Ronnie Rowntree.
For all of three decades, I made daily calls to the Manawatū-Whanganui women at the national tournaments to discover how they were faring. Managers such as Taihape’s Heather Williams were often cooking dinner in a motel room after a day’s play. Occasionally, they’d knock over one of the big teams, but reaching a semifinal was great. A win was seldom in their sights until more recent years.
Team golf is a bit like chess. You must have all bases covered, as in five spots and usually Manawatū-Whanganui has been one quality player shy.
The winning team this time didn’t have a weak link. Two of them, No 1 Tara Raj and the vastly experienced Lisa Herbert, had played for New Zealand, the steady Casey Chettleburgh had only two losses, Samoan player Faith Vui came in just after she became New Zealand amateur matchplay champion at Hamilton and 16-year-old Sera Raj at No 5 played after she’d had a month off golf for her online schooling.
Tara Raj, the player of the tournament as she was three years ago, was unbeaten until the final. A prodigy when she started golf at Whanganui aged 7, she appeared to be the district’s next big thing, as once were Susan Farron and Claire Dury.
The Raj family live near Bulls and their sporting genetics come from their mother, Arlene, who was a New Zealand showjumping rep, and their Sri Lankan father,
Dilan, who has coached cricket in Whanganui and Manawatū.
Tara was just 12 when she made her debut for the interprovincial team at Ashburton in 2015. By 2021, she had mulled over attending Sacramento State University in California, until Covid intruded.
Tara decided university wasn’t for her and will now take up a professional apprenticeship in Napier, under former local rep Andrew Henare. She’ll continue playing, but no longer as an amateur. After three years, she’ll decide if she is suited to touring overseas, where the level of golf is so much higher.
Her coach for 10 years was Alan Hyatt at Manawatū, while her sister Sera plays out of the Feilding club, where she’s coached by Rhys Watkins.
Also with golfing genes is Manawatū’s
Casey Chettleburgh, daughter of evergreen NZ Seniors rep Tony Chettleburgh. She took up the game only six years ago, aged 21, when Tony built a house near the Palmerston North Golf Club.
Tony and Lisa Herbert recently represented New Zealand at the Asia-Pacific seniors’ event in Vietnam.
Vui’s arrival was unheralded. She was unknown in the district, but her wins came when they mattered in the semifinal and final. She plays for the Royal Samoa Golf Club and is registered with the Āpiti Golf Club in northern Manawatū, a remote club of convenience for many who want an official handicap for only $100 without paying exorbitant fees elsewhere.
Vui’s father knew Herbert from playing in lefties tournaments. He contacted her about a place for his daughter in a team and, after joining Āpiti, Man-Wang it was.
The battle-hardened Herbert, the team’s rock, was just the woman for the vital playoff in the semifinal which she won on the third extra hole against Auckland.
Herbert, now the Feilding Golf Club general manager, has done almost everything here in women’s golf, including winning two interprovincials with Wellington.
She had six years as a New Zealand rep, was an Auckland and NZ representative, was twice the world left-handed champion and was a trainee professional in 1995 before being reinstated as an amateur.
RIP
It’s timely to acknowledge two sporting luminaries who died in the past week. One was genial Bowls Palmerston North life member and Bowls NZ president Keith McMurtrie. The other was 1950 Empire Games athlete Cliff Simpson, 95, who lived in Feilding.