Sloan team held to another draw

Our Sloan Trophy team lost further ground on the competition leaders after being held to to another draw on Sunday (April 16).

In the end we had to rely on our intermediate players to secure a draw against a tough Takaka team at Tasman.

We shared the junior matches after our No 6 Garth Jameson lost on debut, while Lewis Wilson showed all his experience in grinding out a win.

In ideal conditions, Garth played well early on but a three-putt on No 9 saw him fall behind and he quickly saw the match slip away to a 4/3 defeat against an opponent who got better as play progressed.

Lewis was one-up early and gradually wore his opponent down for a 2-up win to restore our fortunes.

As a previous winner of the Kina Open, Aaron Kotua has a liking for Tasman and he needed his A-game to see off an in form rival in a match of high quality. They each had a birdie on the opening two holes before Aaron birdied No 3 by binning a putt from off the green to grab the lead. Both continued to play superbly before Aaron - who shot a net 63 - prevailed 2/1.

Our new No 3 Jonathan Tuheke - fresh from his first hole in one on his home course and with his three wood working well off the tee - was all square at the turn but turned the screws on the second nine to coast to a 4/2 victory to put us in charge of the tie.

However, our seniors couldn't finish the job. First Keri Kotua succumbed 2-down, then our No 1 Pete Green was downed 3-2. Despite driving well, Keri missed a few key irons but was still in the match at all square until he lost the 17th to a par and then put his second shotout of bounds on the last.

Pete was two up after two holes but it was soon back to even stevens before a misfiring driver cost him big time from which he couldn't recover in sliding to a 3/2 defeat.

The four points we earned from our second successive draw means we slide to fourth on the points table after four rounds.

In other matches, Totaradale took out Golden Downs 6.5 to 2.5 to extend their lead at the top of the table.

Nelson pushed their claims with a comfortable 7 to 2 win over Murchison, while winless Greenacres showed some ticker  in holding Motueka to a draw.

So after four rounds, Totaradale (24.5 points) holds a handy lead over Golden Downs (18.5) but have yet to have their bye.

Nelson (18) improves to third ahead of the chasing trio of Waahi Taakaro, Takaka and Motueka on 15.5 points. They are followed by Murchison (13), Tasman (11) and Greenacres (8.5).

The next round is at Takaka on May 21 when we play Nelson.