Reedy on title track but work to be done

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

HISTORY beckoned but remained a couple of wins away for local golfer Anaru Reedy heading into the semifinals of the Ryman national veterans golf championship here today.

Electrinet Gisborne Park member Reedy surged into the senior division last four with a 4 and 3 defeat of Tokoroa's Ian Christie in the quarterfinals on the Poverty Bay course yesterday.

Reedy is the favourite for the title last won by a Gisborne player in 1969.

He is on a +3 handicap, easily the lowest in the field, knows the Bay course well and at the minimum age limit of 50 has ‘‘youth'' on his side.

But he would be the first to admit, especially after being upstaged in qualifying, that he is going to have to work for it — a realisation based on experience and the quality of what he has witnessed so far this week.

For example, the player Reedy teed off with in this morning's semifinals.

Royal Wellington member Peter Rankin top qualified on Monday and has an interprovincial pedigree that demands respect.

And the 79-year-old, like Reedy, has the extra incentive of winning his first national veterans title going into today's semis, which teed off at 10.30am.

Not so the other top 16 semifinal featuring Mount Maunganui's Andrew Markman against Omanu's Ron Sisson.

Markman is a four-time winner of the senior title while Sisson won it in 2016.

Sisson ended the hopes of Poverty Bay member Alister Jennings yesterday.

The pair shook hands on the 13th in what Jennings described as ‘‘a hiding''.

Plenty of Gisborne golfers remained in the hunt for overall honours in the other divisions.

Poverty Bay members Tene Goldsmith, Richard Foon and Clive Dean were into the last four of the senior reserve section.

Goldsmith's younger brother Kit and Larry Foster, both Poverty Bay members, were in opposite sides of the draw in the intermediate semifinals.

The intermediate reserve semis were an all-local affair — Bill Simpson v Poverty Bay clubmate Warwick Thompson and the Bay's Keith Daniels up against Gisborne Park's Barry Cox.

Simpson inflicted the maximum matchplay defeat on his first-round opponent — a 10 and 8 demolition.

All finals are tomorrow.