Tairāwhiti out to end Freyberg Masters golf tournament on winning high

Tairāwhiti No 2 Anaru Reedy is determined to go out on a high at the Freyberg Masters interprovincial being held on the Omaha Beach course. The tournament ends this afternoon. Photo / Paul Rickard

Tairāwhiti are “pretty shattered” but determined to end the Freyberg Masters golf interprovincial the way they started it.

Following a bye this morning in the over-40s matchplay competition being hosted by North Harbour club Omaha Beach, Tairāwhiti complete an exhausting campaign against Tasman.

New Zealand’s smallest golfing province went into the Freyberg Masters ranked 15th and bottom seeds. They will not be wooden spooners this year.

A 3-2 defeat of Southland in round 1 and half with Hawke’s Bay in round 2 earned them 1.5 team points, which has guaranteed them 14th at the worst.

Southland are on 0 team points and were heading for another defeat in this morning’s round 8 play.

A win or a half against Tasman would place Tairāwhiti at least 13th.

Team No 2 Anaru Reedy this morning told the Gisborne Herald "a win today would be lovely".

Reedy, who has played at every Freyberg Masters bar 2018 since making his debut in 2015, said they were “pretty shattered”. Eight rounds in five days at this level was “a lot of golf”, but they were determined to lift one more time.

Tairāwhiti suffered their heaviest defeat of the week in round 7 on Thursday – a 5-0 whitewash by North Harbour.

No 1 Jace Brown lost 6 and 4; Reedy, who had won five matches up to then, fell 3 and 1 to Cameron Emett; No 3 David Solomann lost 2 and 1 to Ben Jujnovich – a regular at the Poverty Bay Open; No 4 Richard Apanui lost 1 down to Stephen O’Reilly; and Matt Henwood, in his first Freyberg Masters match, was beaten 3 and 2 by James Colligan.

Henwood replaced Waka Donnelly, who had family commitments.

Tairāwhiti have been competitive throughout the week, despite losing the next five rounds after Monday’s dream start.

“There’s been just a couple of key times when we did not quite fire,” Reedy said.

Reedy and Donnelly sang the praises of the Omaha Beach course.

“It’s an awesome track,” Donnelly said. “It ticks every box.”

“It’s a great course,” Reedy said. “It’s tricky ... and when the wind gets up, it gets real tough.”

Donnelly also praised the performance of Reedy, who was on track to emulate last year’s six victories.

“Ru’s playing awesome. This is his tournament.”

Heading into this morning, reigning champions Auckland were top of the table on a perfect six points, 1.5 ahead of Wellington, Bay of Plenty and Canterbury.