Champion golfers of Taranaki coming together to do battle

The province's champion golfers will be in action during the next week.

The Taranaki men's champion-of-champions event is being held at the Westown Golf Club on Saturday, with 17 of the club's senior, intermediate and junior champions vying for the respective provincial titles.

This year's event will also feature the top 16 players on the Greaves Order of Merit, with the event doubling as the final event of the year for the Tour Championship.

And next Wednesday, the Taranaki women's champions will be in action at Stratford when they compete for the silver, bronze one and two titles plus the team Rosebowl title.

THE Taranaki women's masters team continued its recent run of good form at the national interprovincial championships last week.

After winning the event in 2007, the team finished fourth last year and fifth this year. The four-strong team has remained unchanged over that period.

Individual scores (gross stableford): Eleanor Hodson (26-21-25-26-98), Svala Garner (25-26-25-30-106), Debbie McCallum (29-26-26-28-109) and Chris Wilson (23-27-21-20-91).

A LOSS against Southland in the final round of section play cost the Taranaki men's masters team a place in the semifinal at last week's national interprovincial tournament.

A win against the southerners would have been enough to secure Taranaki second in division two. However, the 3-2 loss allowed three teams – North Harbour, Southland and Auckland – to leapfrog ahead of the five-strong Taranaki side.

Opunake's Aarun Langton was the outstanding player for Taranaki, being unbeaten for his seven matches with six wins and a half at No 3. Murray Martin recorded three wins at No 1, Tony Cawley three wins and two halves at No 2, while Colin Heyes and Robbie Sims both recorded two wins and a half at No 4 and No 5 respectively.

AARUN LANGTON is the 2009 Opunake Golf Club senior men's matchplay champion. Langton beat Nathan Young 7 and 6 in the 36-hole final. The intermediate division went to Don Kettlewell, who beat Brian Sinclair 6 and 5, while Shane Lark beat Wayne Davey 5 and 4 to win the junior title. The limit final was won by Denis Chard, who beat Gavin Gopperth 1-up.

THERE were 141 players competing in the Opunake Open Christmas hamper recently. Leading scores were: Senior men, nett, M. Graham 63; stableford, L. Robins 43; gross, N. Young 69; intermediate, nett, R. Langton 63; stableford, M. Davis 43; junior, nett, C. Lampitt 65; stableford, R. Julian 42; women, nett, L. Simpson 67; stableford, D. Williams 38; gross, D. Forsyth 87.

THE annual McDonald Real Estate primary schools' tournament will be held at the Opunake Golf Club on Friday, November 27. The popular ambrose teams event featured 30 teams last year and this year's event will have about $2000 worth of prizes up for grabs for the leading school teams.

THERE are only seven places available for the 55th New Zealand men's veterans tournament at the Manukorihi course from November 30 to December 4. To date 128 players have entered the five-day event.

- © Fairfax NZ News