Old Hickory team on the improve

Our Old Hickory team had to settle for second on Thursday (March 4) on our home course after Motueka raced away with the honours.

Still, our performance was significantly better than last month when we got the popgun for finishing a distant last.

Barry Rhodes anchored our effort with an excellent 38 stableford points. He got solid backing from Bryan Ramsey (34), Richard Pearson (33) and Ray Hopgood (32) for a team score of 137, which was well shy of Motueka’s winning total of 152.

Our non-scorers were Rob Shand (30) and Tom Kennedy (29), who nonetheless did a sterling job organising the day. Paul Tunnicliff (37) and Tom Weiss (33) performed well as the extra home club members required to make up the field.

Takaka finished third on 134 points followed by Greenacres (133) and Tasman (130). A countback was needed to determine who got the popgun after both Totaradale and Nelson came in with 125 points and it was Nelson for whom the bell tolled.

There were only seven scores over 36 points in the field of 44 players despite ideal playing conditions, with Motueka recording four of them. Top individual performers were Mark Lutterman (Motueka) and Lindsay McLennan (Greenacres) with 40 points apiece, while Bill Rathbun (Greenacres) and David Cairns (Motueka) scored the only twos of the day.

The next round is at Tasman of April 1.