Poverty Bay-East Coast up against guns

GOLF

WHEN James Hydes wins his first title as a professional, a Gisborne golfer will reflect on the day he played him at New Zealand’s highest amateur level.

Poverty Bay-East Coast No.1 Hukanui Brown took on Hydes on Day 2 of the men’s national interprovincial tournament in Auckland.

Hydes, who won the New Zealand amateur title at Poverty Bay golf course last month, was top of the order for North Harbour, who brushed aside PBEC 5-0 in Round 4 of the matchplay event being held on the Whitford Park course.

A member of New Zealand Golf’s high-performance programme and destined to make a living out of the game, Hydes brushed Brown aside 6 and 5.

It summed up Harbour’s domination of the country’s smallest golfing province on another rain-interrupted day.

PBEC No.2 William Brown lost 2 and 1 to Kit Bittle while the rest of the five-man side were comprehensively beaten — No.3 Reef Pohatu losing 8 and 6 to Jesper Bengtsson, No.4 David Solomann 6 and 4 to Jerry Ren and No.5 Dwayne Russell 5 and 4 to Jason Gulasekharam.

It was the second whitewash of the day suffered by PBEC.

Wellington took maximum points from them in the morning, with Hukanui Brown losing 2 and 1 to Jayden Ford, William Brown 4 and 3 to Jonathan Cane, Pohatu 4 and 3 to Matt Morris, Solomann 5 and 4 to Sam Marsters and Russell 7 and 6 to Kerry Mountcastle. Many Gisborne golfers will remember Mountcastle for equalling the Poverty Bay course record (64) in qualifying at the NZ Amateur.

The double bagel further anchored PBEC to eighth and bottom of their Section 1 table on 0 team points and just the one individual point from Solomann’s Round 1 win against Waikato.

They are half a team point behind Bay of Plenty while Wellington and defending champions Auckland are joint top on 3 team points and 12 individual wins.

Taranaki, led by brothers Sam and Ethan Jones, are top of Section 1.

Thursday traditionally features only one round. PBEC were to face Bay of Plenty this morning.

They have a bye tomorrow morning and complete the tournament against Southland in the afternoon.