Geary leads strong field chasing Harewood Open title

Nine previous winners will tee off in this week’s Harewood Open.

Mt Maunganui’s Josh Geary has won three times on the Charles Tour and should he live up to his favourite status in the 72-hole, Friday-Monday tournament, he will join Doug Holloway and current New Zealand No 1 Michael Hendry as the most successful players on the tour.

Holloway is also in the field and should he win, it would his fifth.

Mark Purser (3), Troy Ropiha (2), Fraser Wilkin (2), Grant Moorhead, David Klein, Josh Carmichael and Nick Gillespie are also in the field and have tasted Charles Tour victory before.

Geary missed the cut at last weekend’s Perth Open, but won the week before at the West Australian Open just two weeks after winning the last Charles Tour event in Tauranga.

Moorhead won the same tournament in 1993 and was Tour of Australasia card. That is a great result.’’

Defending champion Josh Munn will not line up this weekend. He is one of six Kiwis playing in the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in China.

Rotorua’s Peter Lee will lead a handy field of amateurs who must fancy their chances after amateurs filled the first four places in last year’s inaugural Harewood Open.

Geary, however, will be the man to beat.

The women’s field is expected to be led by defending champion Julianne Alvarez, Manawatu Open champion Lita Guo and promising North Harbour representative Sai Ma.

The Harewood women’s golf team limped into the Pollock Cup semifinals with a loss and a half in the final two round-robin matches at their home course, but still, narrowly, qualified top.

Harewood, Christchurch and Russley all finished on 10 points and were separated by just half an individual game in the wash up.

Harewood were beaten 3-1 by a Waimairi Beach side surely frustrated at leaving their good form too late and were then held to a half by defending champions Coringa.

That half left the Harewood side on 10 points and 17 individual wins, the same as the fast-finishing Christchurch. Russley had 10 and 161⁄

Harewood finished top courtesy of their 21⁄ 11⁄ win over Christchurch in the fifth of seven rounds.

Christchurch completed the round-robin phase of the competition with 3-1 wins against Clearwater and Waitikiri.

Third-placed Russley will meet Christchurch in next weekend’s semifinals at Templeton while Harewood will face Coringa again.

Christchurch’s Catherine Bell won the Merle Barley Salver for the best individual record, winning six of her seven matches and halving the other. Final points Harewood* 10 points (17 games); Christchurch 10 (17); Russley 10 (161⁄ Coringa 8 (16); Waimairi Beach 6 (111⁄ Waitikiri 5 (12); Templeton 4 (12); Clearwater 3 (10).

Four girls from the Canterbury under 19 women’s team have now been selected in the Canterbury senior side for the South Island interprovincials to be played at the Waimate Golf Club on November 9-10.

Amelia Garvey (Kaiapoi), Momoka Kobori (Rangiora), Hillary O’Connor (Coringa) and Jasmine Rou (Templeton) were all part of the underage side which finished second at their national tournament in Rotorua recently.

They will be joined by Catherine Bell, Elisha Crosbie, Fiona Gebbie and Kate Turner for the five-team tournament in Waimate.

Canterbury have named a slightly weakened team to play in next weekend’s quadrangular tournament against Tasman, Wellington and home side North Harbour.

Jason Yoo and Steven Heyes were unavailable, giving a couple of younger players an opportunity to impress.

Usual suspects Jordan Bakermans, Owen Burgess and Shaun Jones will be joined by Canterbury squad members Sam Pudon, Daniel Laughton, Michael McAuley and Oscar Cadenhead while Weedons’ Jake Hallinan joins the side.

Due to damage in last week’s storm, the Waimak Gorge Golf Course will be closed until Friday.