One more chance to post a win at Freyburg Masters

LEADING FROM THE FRONT: Poverty Bay-East Coast No.1 Anaru Reedy was the only player to beat Auckland No.1 Brent Patterson at the Freyberg Masters interprovincial golf tournament on the Whitford Park course this week. Yesterday, Reedy defeated the Taranaki No.1 Aarun Langton as PBEC finished the week-long tournament on a high, with a 3-2 team win and an overall 13th placing out of 15 provinces. Picture by Paul Rickard

IT’S last chance saloon for Poverty Bay-East Coast in their Holy Grail-like quest for a team win at the Freyberg Masters interprovincial in New Plymouth.

Defeats to Hawke’s Bay (4½-½) and North Harbour (5-0) on the penultimate day of the over-40s matchplay tournament yesterday all but consigned PBEC to the wooden spoon position.

PBEC No.1 John Wyllie provided the half against Hawke’s Bay while No.2 Anaru Reedy and No.3 Simon Jeune had 1-down defeats during what was always going to be a tough day for the bottom-ranked province.

Harbour are sitting top of the table while Hawke’s Bay are second. PBEC have lost all seven of their ties to be on no team points and seven individual wins — five behind second-bottom Tasman, who have one team point.

Both provinces have a bye this morning then face each other in the afternoon. PBEC would need a whitewash to go equal with Tasman on team points and individual wins.

For Wyllie and his teammates, however, 3-2 would be good reason to celebrate. PBEC have not had a team win since 2009 and there were high hopes of ending that run this week.

So far, no good. Reedy has impressed with four wins from seven matches while Jeune has provided the only other victory.

It should be noted that this tournament features the cream of an historical crop — some of the greats of their provinces, including former New Zealand representatives. A good number could still represent their province at Toro interprovincial level.

Several teams were in the title hunt heading into today’s final two rounds. Auckland (on five points) were probably in the strongest position as they had two rounds to play while Harbour and Hawke’s Bay had one apiece.