Northland salvages senior men's title in regional battle

SPOILS OF VICTORY: Northland captain Lee Neumann accepting the trophy for their senior men's victory with Golf Northland President Rob Pelsky.

The Great Northern Battle lived up to its billing as Northland took out the senior men's division.

Northland took on North Harbour in testing conditions at Mangawhai Golf Club on Sunday.

Forty-two players for each province turned out to show their skills around the challenging par-72 championship course.

Players were met with fine and sunny conditions to start their day but as they were making the turn in their round, the winds picked up and rain crept over the course, which made play uncomfortable for players and spectators alike.

The Great Northern battle is decided by an 18-hole matchplay format where players gain points from halving and winning holes in their match.

Each match is worth 18 points, and the final score is then tallied to find the outright winner.

The competition grades comprised open women, masters men, senior men and junior boys, all playing "off the stick" matchplay (gross matchplay) and four junior girls playing handicap matchplay.

North Harbour fielded some very strong teams and took the honours in all sections apart from the senior men's division where Northland came out victorious 7.5 games to 2.5 games.

This was the first hitout of the season for most of the Northland sides and the senior men were boosted by the inclusion of NZ Academy member Luke Brown.

Brown has recently returned from Europe and eased his way back into representative golf winning his number match-up easily. Brown's playing partner, Christian Nitsche, also made a solid start to his representative campaign, taking care of his counterpart while showing he has what it takes to compete at national level.

Former NZ amateur champion Kadin Neho slipped back into representative golf and didn't miss a beat, winning his match on the 16th hole.

Other wins were recorded by Alex Neely, Sheldon Kearns and Scott Wightman, while Julian Fowler recorded the only half of the day.