Club results for May 15, 2021

The first round of the Individual Matchplay produced its usual mixture of shellackings and shocks on Saturday (May 15).

With 24 entered, there were eight matches played in ideal autumn conditions off the blue tees while another eight players were fortunate to draw byes.

At the top of the draw, Aaron Kotua won the first two holes against Richard Pearson and was never headed. Aaron was five up at the turn after going out in an impressive 41 and although Richard closed the gap to three he lost the 15th to go down 4/3.

Paul McCrae had an eight-shot start on Paul Tunnicliff and made them count on the front nine in building a four-hole lead after both shot 46 off the stick. Paul T won the 10th but then lost three in a row as Paul M closed it out 6/5.

Tom Weiss was another who built a handy lead and then used his 12-shot advantage to coast to a 4/3 victory over Jonathan Tuheke. Three up at the turn, Tom won the 14th to go dormie and then halved the 15th for a comfortable win.

The match between good mates Winton Griggs and Alan Church was over early. It started promisingly for Alan who won the first two holes, but Winton shot a fine 43 on the back nine to win eight of the next 11 holes to canter to a 6/5 victory.

Lindsay Brooks' match against Charlie Edgarton followed a similar arc, with Charlie claiming the first two holes before Lindsay - who had to give up nine shots - put the foot down to dominate due to a very tidy 42 on the back nine. Lindsay sealed an easy 6/4 win by winning the last three holes they played.

With a five-stroke advantage, Maurice Woodhouse started solidly against Dean Goodman to be one up after three, but Dean then won the next five holes on the trot to seize control with an excellent front nine 38. It was a lead that was never seriously threatened as they shared a couple of holes before the match ended on the 14th with a 5/4 win to Dean.

Peter Watson had to give Jim McMullan an eye-watering 23 shots but he started well to be three up after five holes before the wheels fell off and Jim won the next five of six holes with some steady golf to edge ahead. Peter then won the next two only to fall one behind again with two to play before rediscovering his touch to win the final two holes for a nervy 1-up result.

The final match between Peter Green and Rangi Kohe was a topsy turvey affair for the the first 10 holes. Rangi established an early two-hole lead which Peter had erased by the turn only for Rangi to reclaim the lead on the 10th. However, Peter then made the decisive move by winning four of the next five holes with some good golf before claiming the 16th for a 4/2 victory.

The second round of the matchplay will be held next Saturday (May 22).

In the match of the day for those not involved in the matchplay, Mike Murphy edged Keri Kotua on countback for top honours after both totalled 36 stableford points. They were followed by Andy Isle (34), Dave Blake (33) and Jack Denton (29) with Steve Russell rounding off the top six with 28 points. 

Keri, Winton Griggs, Richard Pearson and Dave Blake shared to twos money with one each.