Good news all round for Chadwick

Day 4 St Clair GC, Dunedin

It's fair to say Hawke's Bay-Poverty Bay's No1 women's golfer Kate Chadwick had a lot on her mind as she teed off on day four of the national inter-provincial tournament in Dunedin yesterday.

Chadwick started her match against Taranaki's Carol Chard at the St Clair course at 8.05am. The results of the EIT nursing student's final exams were scheduled to be posted on line at 9am.

"I was tempted to check out the results midway through the round. But I didn't for two reasons ... one you're not allowed phones on the course, and two, if the news was bad it would have played on my mind for the remainder of the round," Chadwick said.

"Fortunately, the news was good when I checked. I passed my exams and am now a registered nurse.

"We have to pay to find out our marks, which I will do at a later date ... for now I'm happy with the pass."

It was a case of a double dose of good news for Chadwick yesterday as she beat former Central Region squash representative Chard 2 and 1 to register her third win from six rounds to date this week. However, she wasn't afraid to admit her score of 81 was "a little rough" compared with earlier rounds.

"The exams were definitely to blame," Chadwick said, before heading off to celebrate her exams pass with some shopping.

No3 Angela Jones was HBPB's other winner in their 3-2 loss to Taranaki. Jones beat Celeste McLean 1 up and has been the HBPB team's most successful player to date this week with five wins from six matches.

Winless No2 Jaimie McIvor lost 3 and 1 to Holly Winter, No4 Tessa McDonald lost 2 and 1 to Rochelle Keegan and No5 Lucy Owen lost 3 and 1 to Vanessa Bouvet. Hawke's Bay-Poverty Bay, who finished fifth last year in Whakatane, will play Northland for 11th place in the 14-team Toro-sponsored tournament this morning.

HBPB manager Kathy Olsen agreed yesterday's result was disappointing. "Taranaki are a bit of a nemesis team for us. We had beaten them earlier in the year and could have been over-confident, although their line-up had changed and, getting near the end of the week, fatigue was a factor."

Olsen intends to give reserve Haena Seol her second outing of the week against Northland. On Thursday, Seol lost 3 and 2 to Auckland's 2006 New Zealand amateur champion Larissa Eruera.

Auckland, Waikato, Wellington and Bay of Plenty have secured the four semifinal berths. Auckland remained unbeaten with a 4-1 win against Waikato and will play Bay of Plenty in their semifinal. Waikato will take on Wellington.

Hosts Otago did Waikato a favour by upsetting Canterbury 3-2. Had Canterbury won they would have secured a semifinal berth.

Bay of Plenty ended North Harbour's hopes of securing a third consecutive final. Auckland have an opportunity to become the first team to win back-to-back titles since Bay of Plenty in 2008 and 09.