No time for Anderson to relax after Masters

CONCENTRATION: Pete Anderson lines up a putt during last year’s Poverty Bay Open. Anderson won that tournament, and he ended this week’s Freyberg Masters tournament in winning form, too. Playing at No.1 for Poverty Bay-East Coast, he beat Southland’s Simon Hollyer 1-up in a 3-2 team loss. Anderson now prepares for the Toro men’s national interprovincial that starts on November 26. File picture by Paul Rickard

There's little time to relax for Pete Anderson after a huge week of competitive golf at the Freyberg Masters in Timaru.

Poverty Bay-East Coast No.1 Anderson finished his eight rounds at the over-40s matchplay tournament on a high — a victory over Southland counterpart Simon Hollyer in yet another tense five-man team clash yesterday afternoon.

He won 1-up, his first victory of the week, as PBEC were edged 3-2.

No.4 Anaru Reedy had Poverty Bay-East Coast’s other win — 3 and 2 against Ngarimu Parikai.

No.3 Simon Jeune lost 1-down to Peter Buckley in a match that was on a razor’s edge throughout, No.2 Tony Akroyd lost 3 and 1 to Simon Boland and No.5 David Soloman lost 3 and 1 to Doug Carmichael.

Had they won, PBEC would have emulated last year’s 12th-place finish. They dropped a place to 13th on 1½ team wins and 14 individual points.

They finished ahead of Taranaki and Otago.

PBEC lost 4-1 to the all-conquering Bay of Plenty in yesterday morning’s round.

Solomann denied BoP the whitewash with a 3 and 2 win against Steve Heberley.

Anderson lost 2 and 1 to Steve Williams, Akroyd 5 and 4 to Simon Wright, Jeune 2 and 1 to Marcus Lloyd and Pete Stewart 2 and 1 to Jason Madden.

Solomann ended the week with an impressive record of four wins and a half from his eight matches.

Reedy, who was replaced by Stewart in two matches, won three and halved one of his six matches.

As a team, PBEC started the week with a half against Taranaki and had an excellent 3-2 victory over North Harbour.

Bay of Plenty achieved a perfect record of eight team wins to clinch the title from Canterbury, who were just one individual point ahead of Wellington.

The PBEC team returned home today and Anderson will be straight back into preparation for another big week — the Toro men’s national interprovincial at Hastings Golf Club, starting on November 26.