By Bob Pearce
Wellington golfer Mahal Pearce, runner-up in the Australian amateur championship last month, set the pace in the New Zealand strokeplay championship with a course record 67 at Remuera yesterday.
The 23-year-old from the Miramar Club had five birdies and no bogeys in near perfect conditions on the 6243m course.
He
leads by one shot from two Christchurch Club players, defending champion Karl Kitchingham and top-ranked junior Isaac Randall.
Two shots further back on 70 are the leading Australian, Aaron Baddeley, and three young Kiwis, 17-year-old Matthew Walkington (Waitikiri), 19-year-old Brad Shilton (Te Awamutu) and 21-year-old Jonathan Cane (Manor Park).
Pearce played in the last group in a field of 117 and built his bogey-free round on some excellent putting on greens that were becoming bumpy.
After a regulation birdie on the short par-five first, he holed long birdie putts on the third and 12th. The birdie putt was shorter on the 13th but he holed from just off the green to go five under on the 15th.
All his good work was in jeopardy on the par-five 18th where he went for the green in two, hit the ball thin and veered into some bushes on the right.
The lie was not bad and he reached the green with his third for a final par.
Kitchingham was steadiness personified with four birdies on his first nine and a bogey and birdie on his way in.
Randall, who is likely to be chosen for his second world junior team this month, eagled the first hole but fired it away with three bogeys from the fifth. He stormed home with four birdies in the last six holes for his 68.
Perhaps the most spectacular finish came from Cane, who holed a pitch shot for 60m for an eagle on the 18th.
A feature of these Heineken championships is the youth of the contenders for New Zealand's premier amateur prizes.
Walkington is barely 17 and a seventh former at Riccarton High and Jason Walters, who had a one-under 71, is a 16-year-old sixth-former at Te Kauwhata College.
For the second day in a row there was a hole in one, this time by Australian Simon Nash at the third.
The full field will play a further 18 holes today and the top 64 and ties will complete the strokeplay with 36 holes tomorrow.
