Reedy’s eyes on ‘Triple Crown’ club

STRONG FOCUS: Anaru Reedy heads in to the Poverty Bay men’s open, where a win would give him the three major local honours in one year, a first for Poverty Bay-East Coast golf. Picture by Paul Rickard

GOLF

THE chance to immortalise his name in Poverty Bay-East Coast sporting history is approaching for Gisborne man Anaru Reedy.

When Reedy tees off in the qualifying rounds of the Emerre and Hathaway Poverty Bay Open next month, he will have one aim at the front of his mind, with another lurking in the back of it.

Should Reedy win the 2021 edition of the district’s premier men’s golf tournament for the first time, he will not only become a member of the elite “Triple Crown” club, he will be the first to achieve it in a calendar year.

No player in PBEC history has won the Poverty Bay men’s open (on the Poverty Bay course), King of the Coast (Tolaga Bay) and East Coast (Te Puia Springs) open titles in the same year.

Not legends such as Peter Rouse and Eric Gordon.

Not 21st century champions like Andrew Higham and William Brown.

The three tournaments make up what has become known in modern times as the Triple Crown, or its professional equivalent, the Grand Slam (in that case, all four majors).

Players have come close to winning all three in the same year.

Gordon, Rouse, Waka Donnelly, Higham, Brown and Kerekere have achieved two-thirds of the equation.

But the treble has eluded them, underlining how difficult it is to be at one’s peak in the variety of conditions and challenges each course poses.

The King of the Coast is the youngest of these big three, dating back to 1971 when Billy Hill became the inaugural winner.

It should be noted great players of the distant past such as Frank Gordon, FA Fenwick, LD Roderick and RC Smyth won the East Coast Open and Poverty Bay Open in the same year during the 1950s, well before the KotC was conceived.

Reedy won the KotC at his first try in July of this year, adding it to his fifth East Coast Open title he collected in April.

Now the focus of the 50-year-old member of Electrinet Park is the big one.

Reedy was runner-up to Brown last year and was the first to admit the better man on the day won.

However, he’s had it over Poverty Bay greenkeeper Brown this year, beating him in the King of the Coast and East Coast Open finals.

Brown, of course, is not his only concern.

The 112-man field for the September 23-25 tournament was filled months in advance and there’s plenty of quality, including several Keiha Cup championship 16 victors of previous years.

The most prominent of those is Napier-based Donnelly, who will continue his quest for an eighth PB Open crown and joining Frank Gordon as the 90-year-old tournament’s most prolific winner.

But Reedy, Donnelly and co all know when they tee off on the morning of Thursday, September 23, that it’s a hole-by-hole mission.

And the first part of it is to negotiate the potentially hazardous 36 holes of strokeplay qualifying and make the top 16.

After that lies a mine-ridden matchplay path where every dog could have its day.

And if all goes to plan for Reedy, that day will be history-making.