Golf: Bay again reminded how frustrating life can be

Dan Dougherty has a permanent reminder of how tough it can be to reach the peak of amateur golf in New Zealand.

After his Bay of Plenty side were beaten in a playoff by Auckland in the Tower interprovincial final at Manor Park, Wellington, in 1995, teacher Geoff Smart gave Dougherty a paperweight with the message: "Golf is not a matter of life and death. It's more important than that."

Bay of Plenty, so rich in junior talent, have a well-chronicled failure to take the next step up in the senior team competitions.

And Saturday's interprovincial final against Canterbury at the Invercargill Golf Club's Otatara course was another exercise in frustration, with the Bay losing 2-3 in one heart-wrenching episode.

After bouncing back from a devastating 0-5 loss to Auckland in the final round of qualifying on Friday afternoon, the Bay pipped Waikato's young bloods 3-2 in the semifinal, thanks to a stunning comeback by George Kinghorn over Scott Pickett.

They carried that emotion through much of the final against Canterbury, who had eliminated Southland 3-2.

After nine holes Bay of Plenty led 3-2, with Kent Skellern heading Isaac Randall by two holes.

Andrew McNair was three up on Tim Evett and Kinghorn was one up on Jay Davies. Eddie Burgess was one down to Eddie Lee and Jason Laing three down to Andrew Hobbs, who had played the first nine holes in three under. Slowly the picture changed, for good and bad.

Kinghorn, making his debut at this tournament, handed Davies his second defeat of the week, birdies got Laing two holes back, only for Hobbs to regain the advantage, Burgess was definitely going to lose to Lee, and Skellern was two up with two to go.

That left McNair and Evett to decide the championship. It all started to go badly for McNair at the 12th, which he lost to a par. Evett then birdied the long 13th and squared the match with a par at the 15th.

They both bogeyed the 16th and parred the 17th, to set up the showdown at the 18th.

McNair had the advantage when Evett, who was finding the circumstances "sweaty," missed the fairway and had no shot at the green.

McNair, with the green open and the championship waiting, pulled his shot into a bunker.

Putting was now the name of the game, with Evett lipping out for par from three metres and McNair charging what would have been his winning putt a little less than two metres past the hole.

When the next missed, a stunned Evett accepted a round of back-slapping and handshakes as Canterbury celebrated their second win in three years, and Dougherty comforted a distraught McNair.

It was not a matter of life and death, but it was frustrating.

- HERALD CORRESPONDENT