Brad Bonnington and Luke Brown made their case to move up the order by going unbeaten at the inaugural North Eastern (Ngawaka) Quadrangular Tournament.
Bonnington had three wins playing at six while Brown two wins and a half at No 4 in the tournament held at the Hamilton Golf Clublast weekend.
Northland finished third in the tournament behind Bay of Plenty and Waikato but ahead of the North Harbour.
This new quadrangular tournament had players completing 18 holes of strokeplay with the lowest gross total between corresponding players awarded the match. The teams of four U16s, four U19s and eight seniors competed.
Northland met Bay of Plenty on Saturday morning. Northland's U16s were outclassed with Taylor Gill fighting hard to go down by just three strokes. The U19s were also well beaten with Ben Kennedy's solid 79 overshadowed by the 69 of BOP's Bailey Smith, which was the lowest round of the tournament. The senior team performed well, securing a 4-all draw, with Bonnington recording the team's best weekend score with a 71. Braden Keown, Brown and No 1 Lee Neumann also had wins.
The Waikato match in the afternoon saw the weather gradually deteriorate with the seniors finishing in steady rain. In the U16s, Jackson Arkle's turnaround of 21 shots - 10-shot loss to 11-shot win - had him in a buoyant mood and Julian Fowler halved his match. There was general improvement across the U16s and U19s. There were signs of a senior team win but scores slipped away as the dark closed in to leave Waikato ahead by a half.
Alex Neely had a good win with a round of 72, while Keown continued his good form with a second win and Bonnington and Brown's halves completed the scoring.
Heavy rain returned on Sunday to suspend play for almost two hours in the North Harbour match with the requirement that all players must complete at least nine holes or the day's play would be abandoned. Play was suspended again but by then all players had completed nine holes.
Ben Bowmar completed his weekend with a win as did Fowler in the U16s, while David Collins and Ben Kennedy won in the U19s, with Sam Purdie halving his game. Bonnington, Brown and Neely won, with Brett Dormer at No 2 getting his first win.
