Harbour sweep Northern golf battle

 

It was a tough day at the office for a youthful Northland side that ran into a North Harbour side in fine form at a superbly presented Mangawhai Golf Club last Sunday.

The Harbour side ran out emphatic winners across the grades with just the under 19 boys and under 19 girls teams featuring in the trophy ceremony after drawing their matches.

With a number of players unavailable in the lead-up to the match selectors took the opportunity to blood a number of new players with an eye to the future with all acquitting themselves well and being competitive in their matches.

For the senior women, 15-year-old Soktaera Sean (Northland) playing number three in her senior debut stood out by halving her match.

In the senior men’s team that was narrowly defeated 6-4, Lee Newman (Mangawhai) made the most of his local knowledge with an emphatic win. He was joined in the winner’s circle by captain Lee Neumann (Northland), Sheldon Kearns (Waipu) and Kadin Neho (Whangarei).

From the masters, Denise Pilbrow (Waipu) picked up a big win playing at two for the women’s side that went down 3-1 while Iain Power (Northland), Peter Bone (Whangarei) and Shaun O’Shea (Sherwood Park) were winners for the men who went down by a margin of 5-3.

In the junior ranks the under 16 boys team were all making their debut at this level. All were giving away more than 10 shots on handicap to their more experienced opposition but to their credit the boy’s attitude never faltered throughout and showed plenty of promise for the future. Notable performances came from Chris Shepherd (Whangarei) who emerged with a half playing number one while Tyler Parkinson (Northland) also picked up six of a possible 18 points.

The under 19 boys drew 2-2 with their opponents, captain Julian Fowler (Northland) and Daniel Millett (Northland) picking up wins while the under 19 girls drew 1.5-1.5 following a win to Danielle Ngakuru (Northland) and a half to Setiny Pheng (Sherwood Park).

The next representative fixture is a junior-only match between the Northland and North Harbour development teams at Omaha Golf Club on Sunday 2 August. A team of 10 boys and eight girls will compete.

- Nick Launder