Golf: Big challenge ahead for young side

By JULIE ASH

A young New Zealand team line up against Canada in Auckland today in the opening round of the Commonwealth women's tournament.

The five-day tournament, being staged at the Remuera Golf Club, comprises teams from New Zealand, Canada, Britain, Australia and South Africa.

With an average age of 17, New Zealand are the youngest team at the tournament, after leading amateur Brenda Ormsby turned professional last year and with the unavailability of Tina Howard.

Defending champions Australia, who are gunning for their third consecutive victory, have an average age of 19, Britain 23, South Africa 24 and Canada 30.

"This is a young, relatively inexperienced team, but it includes players with exciting potential," New Zealand selector Sue Bunt said.

"We acknowledge the challenge they face in competing against such well-performed and highly-rated teams as Australia and Britain, in particular. Should our young players rise to that potential, who knows how well they might do."

At 20, Rotorua's Penny Newbrook is the oldest in the New Zealand squad. Stacey Tate (Huapai) and Sarah Nicholson (Huapai) are 18, Jenny Park (Otago) is 16 and Enu Chung (Auckland) 15.

The Canadian side are captained by 45-year-old Jacqueline Little and includes 43-year-old Mary-Ann Lapointe, who has six world team tournaments and three Commonwealths to her credit.

"We don't really know a lot about their team except they have got quite a lot of experience and that is always a challenge for younger girls," New Zealand's non-playing captain Anna Brabyn said.

"But we have put in a lot of preparation up here and we hope that will benefit the girls."

The format has teams of five playing a round-robin competition of two foursomes in the morning and four singles in the afternoon.

The pairings for the foursomes can be decided up to 30 minutes before the start of each day's play, and for the singles 15 minutes before the scheduled start time.

New Zealand have never won the four-yearly tournament, which started in 1959.

Their best result was second, which they achieved in 1983, 1987 and 1991.

"Our girls are just raring to go - they have had good preparation and they just want to start playing," Brabyn said.

"We are here to win it - it wouldn't be worth going out if we didn't have that goal."

In today's other match. Australia face South Africa.

Britain have the bye.

Play starts daily at 8am.