GOLF: Bay pair triumph in Taranaki

In a tournament bearing the name of the world's most famous bagman, you'd think a caddy would be a prerequisite, right?
Wrong.
It might seem slightly conflicting to stick a ban on caddies, but the lack of a mule didn't slow down Hayden Beard (under-25) and Brooke Polley (under-17), who at the weekend won their divisions at the Steve Williams New Zealand mixed age group Classic in Taranaki.
The pair were part of an 87-strong field in the four-round tournament played at the Inglewood and Stratford courses, although the final round was cancelled when already dicey weather turned real ugly.
Rotorua's Saini Skudder, a Bay of Plenty interprovincial women's rep, won the female under-25 nett and gross.
The tournament is run by the Taranaki Junior Golfing Society, with all the players on Wednesday getting the chance to walk the par-68 Inglewood layout course with Tiger Woods' caddy Steve Williams.
Polley (Tauranga), who has just finished Year 10 at Otumoetai College, shot nett rounds of 68, 68 and 66 to win her age group by plenty, cashing in on a handicap that has gone from 9 to 15.4 in a year ravaged by a back injury.
Beard (Mt Maunganui), a second-year business management and accounting student at Waikato University had 69, 73 and 69 off his scratch handicap.
Among the prizes they came home with were rounds for two at Cape Kidnappers, with 15-year-old Polley keen to take her coach, Golf Fusion's Mikayla Bell, to the Hawke's Bay monster course. Beard won't even get to choose, with his father, former Northern Districts cricketer Derek, already anointing himself as the second half of that duo, end of story.
Polley has been playing for three years, giving up a promising jazz ballet career to concentrate on golf, and is keen to go as "far as it will take me".
Beard, 20, played in Mt Maunganui's championship pennant team this year, won the New Zealand University Games title by 18 shots in Invercargill and made his Bay of Plenty senior debut in last month's Garrard Shield in Waitangi.
But any golfing ambition takes a back seat to his burgeoning tertiary studies. "I've still two years left at uni, as well as doing my chartered accountancy for a few years after that, so golf's not top priority right now."