McDonald golfing win saves whitewash

GISBORNE golfer Tessa McDonald is finding her groove after her late call-up for the Toro women’s national interprovincial in Ashburton.

McDonald, playing at No.5 for Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay yesterday notched her first win of the teams’ matchplay tournament.

Somewhat ironically, it came against a province she had hoped to be playing for at the week-long event.

The five-woman HBPB team lost 4-1 to Waikato in round 4 yesterday afternoon.

Gisborne Park club member McDonald, who has been studying to be a primary school teacher at Waikato University for the past two years, tried out for the Waikato team this year.

She represented the province recently and played several selection events, but just missed out on the squad for the Toro.

A disappointed McDonald returned to Gisborne for the summer but just two days out from the Toro received an SOS phone call from HBPB — the province she previously played for up to national interprovincial level.

HBPB’s reserve had to pull out for health reasons and their No.5 followed because of a family bereavement.

McDonald had just a couple of days to get back into the swing and after losing her first two matches — against Canterbury and Tasman — she started to get her game going yesterday morning in a 2 and 1 loss against an Auckland opponent, who slotted a couple of long putts to win.

The progression continued into the Waikato clash yesterday afternoon. McDonald defeated Te Awamutu’s Kelly Nicholas 3 and 2 to save the team whitewash. She got her nose in front early and stayed there.

Heading into today’s play, HBPB were sitting fifth in group 1 on one team point and seven individual wins.

They had a bye this morning and play Aorangi-South Canterbury this afternoon.

The rest of the HBPB team are are Hawke’s Bay players — Kate Chadwick, Janie Field, Jaimie McIvor and Sara Deam.