Bay of Plenty's sole remaining hope of a home winner at the New Zealand Amateur at Mt Maunganui doesn't even play for the province.
Peter Lee, 17, will carry the hopes of the region after a near-flawless opening day of match play yesterday, progressing to a quarter-final today against Levin's Tyler Hodge.
While his golf was superb, so was that of opponent David Feeney from Tauranga, but Lee managed to see him off in a thriller yesterday afternoon.
Lee, who was sensationally disqualified from the New Zealand Open last year at Clearwater after playing with non-conforming clubs, has been unavailable to play rep golf for Bay of Plenty since he missed selection for the interprovincial at Paraparaumu in 2010.
But he's playing some scintillating golf, easily winning his opening match 4 and 2 against Hamilton's Ho Jun Sung yesterday morning before lasting the distance against Feeney, who qualified for the Amateur via a playoff on Thursday and promptly turfed out No5 seed Lachie McDonald 3 and 2 in the first round.
Bay of Plenty No1 Brad Kendall's hopes of going one better than two years ago, when he lost the final to Australian Matt Jager, disappeared when he was beaten 3 and 1 by Tyler Hodge, who is fresh from winning the Australian boys' amateur championship last week and sunk Kendall with three birdies in succession on the back nine.
Omanu's Craig Hamilton, another to qualify in a playoff, caused a boilover when he eliminated Harrison Savage (Australia), the No3 seed, while Tauranga's Eddie Burgess, bidding to turn back the clock on an amateur career that peaked a decade ago, also went out in round one.
Tauranga left-hander Sam Davis was all business in his morning win over Brian Joe but had to battle a wayward driver as well as a metronomic opponent in Manukau's Tae Koh to lose his second round match 3 and 2. Davis said on form he might have given Koh a decent run.
"He played a lot better than me and was like a robot really, and two mistakes coming in cost me - I hit into the right bunker on 12 and then missed a three footer on 15 for a half."
Davis and Hamilton, the national foursomes champions, head to Europe next month for two months of tournament play. Hamilton is counting on his putter travelling better than it did between rounds yesterday, with a hot short stick in round one turning ice cold in the afternoon as the pace of the greens caught him out in his 3 and 2 loss to Brad Hayward (New Plymouth).
"This morning was mint, I was either binning putts for birdie or leaving them a foot past. I don't know why but this afternoon was shocking and I left a lot six foot short. The greens seemed slower and were bumpier with all the traffic that's been on them but I just didn't get to grips with it."
Hamilton also played the par fives poorly, losing a ball on the 5th hole in his win over Savage and tangling with the trees on the same hole in the second round.
Southland No1 Vaughan McCall has stayed on track to be the first golfer in 24 years to win both the New Zealand strokeplay and matchplay titles but needed a superb approach to a foot to hold off Canterbury rep Jordan Bakermans 1 up and progress to the quarter-final.
"Both matches [he also beat Regan Kilpatrick] were a real grind today right from the word go," the 20-year-old Gore golfer said. "Jordan put a huge amount of pressure on me this afternoon. I was three up with four holes to play and he went birdie, birdie and I missed a couple of short putts which made the game interesting.
"I missed a short one on the second-to-last hole [but] coming down the last I made sure I didn't have to putt it."
Australian Ryan McCarthy, who was the No1 seed after playing superbly in qualifying, wasn't so lucky. He staged a fine comeback of his own against compatriot Brady Watt after being four down but three-jabbed the last to lose 1 down.
The feature match today is McCall's quarter-final clash with another New Zealand rep, Sam An, who won the Grant Clements trophy at the Mount in February.
In the women's division the news wasn't great either for the Bay of Plenty combatants, with Grace Senior (Tauranga) and Tyla Kingi (Opotiki) making it past round one before succumbing. Shelley McElroy (Springfield), Heather Lavery (Rotorua) and Susan Lines (Te Teko) were all eliminated early.
It's still a head scratcher why the top 32 women qualified for matchplay when only 51 fronted for qualifying, with a 36-hole total of 23-over par good enough to make the matchplay stage.
Top seed Julianne Alvarez is safely through to the quarter-finals but not before she was made to sweat by Wellington teammate Te Rongopai Clay, taken to the 19th before getting home.
Waikato's Sarah Bradley is on course to meet Alvarez in tomorrow's final.