It was a successful weekend for both the Women’s and Men’s Canterbury teams over the weekend as both teams took out their respective South Island Interprovincial titles. Played at the clubs set to host the 2024 NZ Interprovincial tournaments in early December, the weekend provided an ideal opportunity for the teams to familiarise themselves with the course. Supporters too enjoyed improved opportunity to engage with the event with the introduction of Live Scoring as an event first following Canterbury Golf’s new agreement to utilise the impressive Golf Genius software which enabled managers and supporters alike to stay up to date with all matches with hole-by-hole updates.
In the women’s event Canterbury took on Tasman in their opening round on Saturday at Harewood Golf Club and it was a largely smooth sailing contest coming away with a 6-2 victory. Zaria Bourne put on a impressive dispay winning her match by a mammoth 9&8 margin. Alisia Ren and Lannie Inoue likewise had strong starts winning their matches 8&6 and 6&5 respectively. The only dropped games were at the 7 & 8 positions where due to the format of the event saw the Canterbury players having to give a significant amount of shots to their opponents due to the variance in handicaps.
In the afternoon the side then took on Otago looking to continue their round 1 momentum. Although a slightly closer contest, Canterbury still managed a comfortable victory winning by a team margin of 5.5-2.5. Team captain Rachel Eder coming away with 5&4 win despite giving up shots with Bourne also winning the same margin. Junie Chang on debut at this level got over the line in the closest match winning 1Up on the last.
While Canterbury recorded two day 1 wins, neighbours Aorangi also managed the same which set up effectively a final match as the tournament switched venues to Russley Golf Club. In what turned to be a hot day with the greens running quicker than the day 1 venue the team managed to adjust well coming out the blocks strongly to get ahead in most matches. That form continued with the ladies managing to close out the contest winning by a margin of 6-2. Mel Newburn at the number 7 position had a strong round winning 6&4 after yet again giving up plenty of shots to her opponent. Olive Tapu also had a strong showing, winning 8 & 6 with Bourne again winning convincingly 7&6. Overall, Lannie Inoue, Zaria Bourne, Junie Chang, and Olive Tapu all managed perfect 3 from 3 win weekends which contributed towards the team successfully defending the title they won 12-months earlier.
In the men’s event Day 1 saw the Cantabs take on both Aorangi and Tasman in the split draw format. In the Tasman contest, Canterbury came out on top by a margin of 6.5-1.5 with captain Cooper Moore, Cameron Grant and Peter Lee all prevailing by a 4&3 margin. Yuki Miya, Adam Winter, and Sam McGill also recorded wins with the Tasman youngsters of Elijah Barney and Kobe Hart getting their points with a win and half respectively.
In the Aorangi match it was largely one-way traffic with the final scoreline coming in at 7.5-.5. The solitary half point for Aorangi came at the top of the order which saw a cracking game play out between Aorangi’s Jeff Hewitt and Canterbury’s Cooper Moore. Hewitt came out hot with 4 birdies on the first 6 holes, but Moore hung tough and eventually poked ahead with one to play. However, Hewitt produced an eagle on the last to half the match in what was arguably a fair result with Hewitt shooting a 2under round compared to Moore’s 3under round. In other matches, Peter Lee won strongly 7&6 while Yuki Miya and Sam McGill again won 4&3.
Onto Day 2 at Russley with Canterbury in the box seats with the only province to record two day 1 victories with both Southland and Otago having 1 win and a tie with each other on Day 1. In the morning play Canterbury made an all but perfect start winning 3 games and losing just one against Otago, and winning all 4 against Southland. Adam Winter won strongly in his match vs Otago 4&2 while Miya and Moore got the other two wins against Otago. In the Southland matches Lee continued his strong weekend winning 6&5 while Scott Manyweathers, Grant and McGill also won.
With the pleasing morning results, it seems Canterbury were very strong favourites to finish the job just needing one win in each of the remaining Otago and Southland matches. The Southland contest turned out to be relatively smooth sailing with Jake Roberts playing some good golf on his way to a 6&4 win to secure the required point in that fixture. Moore and Miya’s matches however went deep with Miya winning 2/1 and Moore winning 1Up on the last to round out a 7.5-.5 scoreline.
The Otago match however was anything but smooth sailing with Otago still having a slim hope of winning the entire tournament if they could win all 4 matches in the afternoon, to take the team win. All of the matches were very close and swaying either way, however as we approached the final holes Otago were managing to rise to the occasion and captured wins over Manyweathers, the previously unbeaten Lee and also Cam grant, giving them 3 of their required 4 wins. In all came down then to the outcome of the match of Sam McGill and Otago’s Ricky Kang. With the match A/S playing the 16th, Kang made an uncharacteristic 3 putt to give McGill a 1Up lead with 2 to play. After trading bogeys on the 17th which had a very tough pin placement, both players moved to the 18th tee with the knowledge that anything but Otago winning the hole and halving the match would see Canterbury claim the title. McGill managed to hold his nerve however making the green in two compared to Kang’s three, with both players paring the hole McGill secured the required final point for a 4-4 draw which was enough to give Canterbury 3.5 points versus Otago’s 3.
All in all a great weekend of Rep golf which will no doubt have set all South Island provinces up well for the NZ Interprovincial which lies ahead in December. Thanks again to the Harewood Golf Club and Russley Golf Club for hosting their respective days of the event.
The event photos, final table, and results can be viewed below:
