The annual 2022 Men’s South Island Interprovincial tournament was played over the weekend hosted by Hororata Golf Club. Hororata, which this year was celebrating their centenary was in impressive condition, with many commenting that the course was in the best condition they had seen it. A credit to the greenkeeper Andrew Bell and the team of volunteers including Al Sime for their tireless work to bring the course up to the standard it was presented in.
With Canterbury going into the event as defending champions, hopes were high they could defend the title they won last year in Ashburton. The Canterbury team had a few familiar faces from last years team including Reid Hilton, Andrew Green and local Hororata lad Dominic Brettkelly who was playing in the number one position. The team also featured some event debutants in Sam McGill, Peter Lee and youngsters Yuki Miya and Cooper Moore who are just 16 and 14 years old respectively. Dean Harvey was another play back playing at this level after several years.
The format of this event sees 8-man amateur teams from the provinces of Southland, Otago, Aorangi, Canterbury and Tasman come together to play each other in a round robin competition of singles match play. The draw was as per the established rotation of the “split draw” format for 5 teams playing 72 holes without a bye.
On day 1 Canterbury came up against Southland and Aorangi with both causing the Cantabrians a few challenges before they managed to come away with two team victories. The Southland match ended 4.5-3.5 with the biggest win going to Yuki Miya 5/4 over Ben Munroe with Peter Lee and Cooper Moore also securing 4/3 victories. The Aorangi fixture was a slightly wider margin with the team coming away with a 5-3 victory, the standout performance in this fixture were by Reid Hilton 5/4 over Alex Kelliher and Dean Harvey’s 6/5 win over Dave Morrison. Sam McGill also secured a hard fought 1Up victory over Kris O’Neil.
With two wins from two Canterbury moved into day 2 in pole position with Otago being the next closest team in contention after their day 1 win and half. In the end Canterbury navigated their day 2 opponents Otago and Tasman relatively comfortably, led by home-town favourite Dominic Brettkelly who recorded a 7/6 victory over Otago’s Inia Logan and a 6/4 victory over Tasman’s Nick Franzmann, a round which featured some powerful scoring. The final result against Otago was a convincing 6.5-1.5 with Hilton and Moore also chipping in with strong 4/3 performances. The Tasman match was won in even more impressive fashion 7-1 with the standout performance coming from debutant Peter Lee who won 7/6 vs Ryan MacDonald.
So after the completion of round 4 Canterbury were once again crowned the South Island Interprovincial champions with a perfect 4 games from 4 record with 23 individual wins. Rounding out the podium were Southland in 2nd and Otago in 3rd. Full results can be viewed – HERE.
For the men's side of things, the attention now turns to the showpiece event of the Representative calendar the NZ Interprovincial tournament to be played in Tauranga in December. The 6-man team for that event being named in the coming weeks.
Coinciding with the men’s event the Boys South Island Interprovincial between Canterbury and Otago was also being played. This featured 6 players (4x u19s & 2x u16s) from each region who competed against each other in four different match play format rounds. This began with reverse match play singles and best ball on the Saturday and then on the Sunday a round of foursomes in the morning and straight match play singles in the afternoon. The Canterbury team consisted of four players that were part of the recent NZ Boys Interprovincial squad in Sam Harris, Seb May, Tim Graham and Phong Nguyen. The other two players were u16 Etienne Collier and u19 Max Edwards, who is also a local of Hororata Golf Club. The Canterbury Boys managed to take out the event by a score of 11.5-6.5. The full results can be read – HERE.
