Auckland showed some of their best form to beat Waikato 4-1 at the interprovincial golf championships yesterday at Manawatu but they will need either Wellington or Hawkes Bay to lose twice today if they are to make the semifinals.
In the other section, wins for North Harbour against Bay of
Plenty and Otago today would probably see them through to the semis tomorrow.
In a fierce southeasterly, Auckland raced away from their perennial rivals.
After nine holes Fraser Wilkin was four up on Gavin Cortesi, Ben Wallace had a similar margin over Tane Robson and No 1 Ryan Fox, who had recorded two twos and an eagle, was five ahead of Les Miller.
Those three went on to comfortable victories while Gary-John Hill beat Mat Perry in bizarre circumstances.
They were all square coming to their last hole, a 320m par four with a path just in front of the green.
The big-hitting Perry opted to use a three-wood but with the following wind hit the path from where his ball bounced into the fork of a huge totara tree.
He recovered his ball but had to take a penalty and eventually conceded the hole and the game to Hill.
Auckland must beat Taranaki and Manawatu-Wanganui today and will have to hope the losers of the Wellington-Hawkes Bay clash in the morning also lose in the afternoon.
Waikato are in much the same position as they play Tasman and Wellington.
Taranaki almost did Auckland a favour by halving their match with Hawkes Bay yesterday but Bay No 1 Daniel Pearce's birdie putt on the last earned his team a 3-2 win.
Harbour were given a good contest by Southland before prevailing 3-2.
Today they play Bay of Plenty and Otago, both rivals with Canterbury for the semifinal places from their section.
Bay of Plenty, the defending champions, shared the points with Canterbury yesterday with wins to Landyn Edwards and Kieran Muir and a half for Bradley Kendall.
Tom Turner snared the half for the southerners.
There was good news for Northland, who broke their duck by beating Aorangi 3-1 in a tight contest.
