As most New Zealanders begin to get ‘hyped up’ about the Rugby World Cup which began this week, I wondered if any of our current membership had ever played rugby for NZ and came up with two possibilities, Phillip Rutene and Robin Macklin! Now Robin did not actually play for NZ but represented a Lower North Island U16 secondary schools team, mainly from Manawatu that toured Australia in 1970. Robin played as a flanker, although he had played most of his rugby as a hooker! Phil, however, represented New Zealand over a three year period. In 1980 he toured Australia with the NZ Secondary Schools team and played as a second five eight (mainly because the first five eight was Grant Fox) and then had two years in the NZ Colts team that also played Australia.
Back to the mere mortals who play golf and the men’s Maunsell Trophy final was played on Saturday with all 16 finalists raring to go. However midway through the round the very cold and wetting rain came in and not only did a number of players withdraw but scoring became very difficult in the par competition. In the end a birdie on No 18 was good enough to give Innes Kennard a +2 score and victory in the Maunsell Trophy. Other results-
Men
1st Innes Kennard +2
2nd Simon Buckley +1
3rd Kevin Mackay +1
4th Geoff Masters Sq
Women (Stableford)
1st Lesley Stewart 31
The All Teed Up Nearest the Pin’s on No 8 went to Jeff Ogg and Nooroa Rota and No 18 to Innes Kennard.
Congratulations to Kerry Mountcastle who played last weekend in the Wellington Strokeplay Championships at Te Marua. Kerry came a very close 2nd with a four round total of 285 (72, 70, 70, 73), one shot behind winner Jonathan Cane.
The new World Thursday competition saw a magnificent round by Sam Forrester who scored a gross 64 for 45 stableford points. What was even more remarkable was that Sam’s round included two 3 putts. Often the bridesmaid in second place was Murray Wolland with 42 points, followed by Justin Herbert and Kelvin Biggs, both with 41. The All Teed Up Nearest the Pin was Dermot Fitzgerald and the maximum jackpot for the birdsnest again proved elusive.
The Wednesday 9 holers had a good field for a stroke and shootout round which was won by Beet Horrocks and Di Alexander on 35 nett. Third were Susie Williams, Barbie Wallace and Rosey Wellbrock on 38. The PGG Wrightson Longest Drive was Susie Williams and the All Teed Up Nearest the Pin went to Ginny Cameron.
Both the Monday vets and the Tuesday women’s competitions were postponed.
The Men’s Match Committee has been discussing the annual Sir Bob Charles tournament with Sir Bob Charles and made a number of changes to this years Left handers and Classic. The date has been changed from Sunday 4 October (as advertised in the diary) to Saturday 31 October. Further changes to the format will be advised.
Last week I made an error by advising the date of this year’s Sellar Trophy. The Sellar Trophy will be played, as entered in the diary on Saturday 10 October. Entry forms are on the club notice board.
Off the Fairway
In ‘researching’ Robin Macklin’s rugby exploits I found out an even better story! Robin did his green keepers apprenticeship at Paraparaumu and when he qualified ‘took off’ on his OE, something which was quite common in the 1970’s. His travels took him to West Africa and he got a green keeping job in Lagos, Nigeria, preparing the course for the upcoming 1976 Nigerian Open. The only problem was that, at this time Nigeria was having a military coup detat about every 2 weeks, and with the military barracks on one side of the golf course it was quite common to have cross fire from the rebels on one side of the course and the government troops on the other, with the greenkeepers in the middle!