Almost three-quarters of the way through the final, there was no indication of what was to eventuate.
Kerr, going for her fifth Park senior crown, was 3-up after 18 holes and 5-up with nine holes to play.
“She went off the boil and I shot 39 [2-over] for the last nine,” said Hay, who plays off an eight-handicap.
That included winning the 36th with a par to send the marathon match-up to sudden death.
The pair went shot-for-shot over three extra holes, before teeing off “the road hole” par-4 fourth where arguably fate played its part.
“I usually use my 5-wood from that distance [away from the green], but took my 3-wood ... by mistake,” Hay said.
She watched as her ball flew up and on to the green to about 2m from the hole before realising her “mistake”.
It was the last shot she played in the match as Kerr, after a bit of a struggle, conceded.
Hay only entered this year “to make up the numbers” and if it hadn’t been for wet weather resulting in the champs being delayed, she would not have been available.
Kerr had also been unsure about playing. Major issues with her feet have restricted her course time to only a handful of rounds this year.
Despite building a 6-up lead at one stage, Kerr said she was “just hanging on” and it was her short game that was saving her against a player, who, tee to green “was wonderful”.
Hay has won the Park senior title in five different decades and it would almost certainly have been six had she not stopped playing for over 15 years from 1980.
She won three times in the 70s, in 1997 after her return to the game, and again from 2000-2011, 2014, 2016 and 2021-2023.
Those are just part of an impressive career that has also featured making a New Zealand Under-21 team who played against Australia in Auckland where “it rained and rained and rained”; representing Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay at national interprovincial and masters level; two holes in one – at Patutahi in 1972 and Hawke’s Bay (Flaxmere) Golf Club in 2011; a personal best round of three-under 70 at the Park in 2004; and various district open titles.
She comes from a golfing family. Parents Ray and Nea were Patutahi stalwarts and her three brothers also played.
Hay was Patutahi’s senior women’s club champion in 1973 and 1974 – so that’s actually a 52-year gap between her first and most recent senior honours – before the family shifted to the Park.
Asked whether 25 Park senior titles were in her sights, the typically modest mother of two and grandmother of one replied: “I don’t think I’ll get to 25.”
Hay is eyeing more success next week at the Emerre and Hathaway Poverty Bay Women’s Open on the Awapuni Links course.
The two-day tournament features 103 players from as far south as Tokarihi, near Oamaru, to as north as Auckland.
There are matchplay, 18-hole and nine-hole sections.
