Featherston golfers have remarkable pennants success

Featherston made their first year in the Wellington junior pennants Wairarapa zone golf competition a memorable one, not only claiming the title but winning all of their matches.
The team of Vinnie Molnar, Reece Lett, Tony Russo, Owen Lloyd and Daniel Hailwood, aged from 10yrs to 16yrs, won most of their games in the four person stableford competition by wide margins despite their individual handicaps reducing steadily over the period of the competition.
In one of his pennant matches at Featherston Molnar shot a 73 off the stick and registered a remarkable 45 stableford points and he confirmed his promise by being the only singles winner in his side when he played for the Featherston club in a recent Wellington association seventh division competition game.
It was Molnar's debut appearance at that level and he was playing on the tricky hillside nine-hole Ohariu Valley course for the first time.
And the opposition was strong too, having already won the seventh division title.
The summer months had seen Molnar win the Featherston club's twilight competition for the ANZ Cup and his improvement over the last few months is illustrated by the fact he registered his first sub-80 round only in January of this year.
Molnar is not, however, the only member of the Featherston junior pennants team to achieve representative honours.
Lee has played twice in the Wairarapa Watt Cup team under-19 team and, along with Molnar, was a member of a Wairarapa team which played against Taranaki at Waverley in April.
There they met some stern opposition in match play.Molnar was just one over par at the 15 th but had already lost his game 8 and 7 with his opponent, who was on a plus two handicap, completing his round in 65.
Lett also went down to a rival who was on a one handicap.
Playing in the regional Tainui golf competition on the Coromandel in January, Lett won his 18-36 handicap division to qualify for the finals played in Ngarawahia.
Daniel Hailwood, another of the pennants team, won Featherston's summer medal Wymms Cup competition with net scores of 60 and 66, his 126 allowing him to pip Reece Lett on 128.
Owen Lloyd came third in his handicap group at the Riversdale club's junior competition in January while Tony Russo won Featherston's other summer 36-hole competition for the Benton Cup with net scores of 61 and 63.Loyd and Russo also qualified for the last 16 of the President's trophy series.
It was unfortunate that as a result of some miscommunication between their club and the Wellington association the Featherston junior pennants team was not advised of the details of their sone final, which would have seen them matched against the three other zone finalists from within the Wellington region. Therefore they missed a valuable and rare opportunity to play the Royal Wellington course at Heretaunga.
The success of the Featherston youngsters can be directly related to their club's junior coaching scheme which kicked off nearly three years ago when Wellington association development manager Mark Brown tutored a group of 10 adult members in the coaching of junior players.
As each of the juniors involved in the scheme gained handicaps the Featherston club used granted funds to ensure the more technical aspects of their game could be developed through private lessons from the likes of Masterton professional Jamie McIsaac.
The end result is that Featherston, a small club with a total membership of 170, now has a core of promising, enthusiastic players who are able to compete well against adult players in both medal and match play, and who in their own way have become excellent ambassadors for the sport in that part of the Wairarapa region, and further afield.
It is important too to note too that the coaching process is not a one off wonder.
New players are entering the scheme each year and the regular coaches already have their eyes of four or five more juniors who are starting to demonstrate the basic skills which will take them into the pennants and inter-club teams of the future.