The 2014 Rioch Wanganui Golf Open has attracted a stellar field for Sunday's tee off including some of the country's top in-form amateurs and professionals.
Marton golfer Lachie Macdonald won the 36-hole open at Belmont, the home of hosts the Wanganui Golf Club last year after carding 130.
While Macdonald is again in the field on Sunday he will have the job ahead to hold out one of New Zealand's top amateurs Josh Munn.
Munn, a member of the Manawatu-Wanganui team, finished third, 12 shots behind Macdonald last year, but is in seriously good form this season.
The Manawatu player will use the Wanganui open as a lead-up to the World Amateur Championships in Japan next month. He has been selected to represent New Zealand in the three-strong Eisenhower alongside Tae Koh and Vaughan McCall. Koh and McCall are not in the open on Sunday.
Munn is in rare form finishing with a share of second place at the 112th Western Amateur Championship in Illinois earlier this year. The 23-year-old New Zealand Amateur Champion carded a two-under par 69 in the final round to finish two shots behind American Doug Ghim, whose six-under par 65 secured a come-from-behind win.
Munn began playing golf at 13 and has been enormously successful since. He first made a name for himself in 2011 when he won the open at the Charles Tour. Munn further showed his talents in 2012 in the playoff for the SBS invitational title where he took what he refers to as "his most spectacular shot", sinking a 45 foot putt which led to the province's first win in 10 years.
Munn has hit his stride in the past few years, winning numerous international events and just recently taking a spectacular New Zealand Amateur Championship win - the first Manawatu player in over 80 years.
The Manawatu-Wanganui team, led by then Manawatu No1 Munn, erased not only 12 months of disappointment, but nearly 50 years of drought by claiming the Toro NZ Men's Interprovincial title in dominant fashion at the North Shore Golf Club in December last year.
Munn will tee off on Sunday with in-form expat Wanganui professional Nick Gillespie and Palmerston North's Rhys Harold, who is seeking selection to the senior Manawatu-Wanganui team. The Wanganui Open is also the second trial to help selectors name a Manawatu-Wanganui team.
Gillespie, who won last year's Craigs Investment Wanganui Pro Am, has since been busy racking up points on the PGA China Tour's pro golf order of merit. Other top golfers include Junior Tatana from Foxton and Castlecliff player Tyler Lock.
Spectators are welcome on Sunday and those keen to follow the pre-post favourites - Munn, Gillespie and co - can front up at the shotgun tee offs. Munn's group tee off from No6 at 8am in the first round, then again from No1 when the second round kicks off at 12.45pm