Peter Williams: Interprovincial hopes shot down in flames

Auckland's prospects of winning the National Interprovincial tournament at Titirangi in late November have nosedived because three top players don't want to represent their province.

Travis O'Connell, Kevin Chun and Franz Schwanner are all unavailable for the prestigious event once known as the Freyberg Rosebowl and, in more recent years, simply as the Tower.

O'Connell, Chun and Schwanner would rather go to Melbourne to try and qualify for the Australian Open. Just why they've decided to play an event in which they may not even get a start is a major blow for the Auckland Golf Association.

"We're bitterly disappointed," the association's executive director Peter Seagar told me this week.

"In fact, I'm gutted. The Interprovincial is in Auckland for the first time in years, on a course where Chun is a member, the likelihood of a comparatively straightforward draw that avoids Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Wellington, North Harbour and Canterbury in section play - and our best players don't want to be part of it. I can't figure it out."

Auckland has not won the Interprovincial since 1995. For a province that dominated the national scene in the 1980s when Phil Aickin, Michael Barltrop and Glen Goldfinch were at their peak, that's unimpressive.

Earlier this year O'Connell, Chun, Albert Kim, Andy Gang and Logan Holzer won the National Interprovincial Strokeplay, the SBS Invitational, in Invercargill. Hopes were high that, with home advantage, Auckland could complete the double at Titirangi in 10 weeks' time.

But of the five who won in Invercargill, Holzer has eased back on competition after getting married, Gang's whereabouts are unknown and Chun and O'Connell don't want to play.

Seagar is not mincing his words about the defectors.

"The heart's been ripped out of the team. It's been decimated. After all the time and money we've spent on these guys, you'd think they'd be loyal for one year."

So that's why last weekend, when the Auckland 10-man team played Wellington in the annual match at Taupo, O'Connell was finishing third at the Waikato Strokeplay on 10 under and a shot behind New Zealand's top amateurs Brad Iles and Matthew Holten.

Schwanner and Chun were also in Hamilton instead of Taupo - and playing well. The provincial selectors have taken the view, quite correctly, that it's not worth having players in the team now who can't be at Titirangi in November.

So an Auckland side which contained four schoolboys - Jason Mann, Fraser Wilkin, Seve Ha and Ben Wallace - was solidly beaten by Wellington 14 matches to six over two days.

But as so often is the case in team matchplay, the stark numbers hide the closeness of the contest.

On the first day, five of the 10 matches went to the 18th green and Wellington won four of them. On the Sunday the result was close - Wellington 6 Auckland 4.

That match in Taupo, plus form and results in the quadrangular tournament against Northland, Waikato and Taranaki in a fortnight and the Garrard Shield with Northland, Bay of Plenty and Waikato at Lochiel on October 29th and 30th, will decide the five-man team for the Interprovincial.

Those who went to Taupo regard the attitude of the three defectors as arrogant. But they also now see opportunities to play in a prestigious New Zealand event.

So at least the team that Auckland puts out at Titirangi on November 22nd will contain five guys who actually want to be there.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY