KEY POINTS:
Waikato's James Gill had his first hole-in-one as the favoured teams made strong starts on the first day of the men's interprovincial teams matchplay championship at Levels, Timaru, yesterday.
After morning byes, North Harbour and Bay of Plenty in division one, and Waikato in division two, opened their
campaigns successfully, but Bay got quite a fright before mastering Northland 3 1/2-1 1/2.
Northland, after a first-round loss to Tasman, led 3-2 after five holes and at the turn before the Bay's experience told.
It was a successful day for Tasman, who have not finished better than 11th in the past five years. After beating Northland 3-2, they also accounted for Hawkes Bay by the same margin in the afternoon to be the side to score dual wins. The top-ranked teams had a bye.
Gill, who represented New Zealand at the recent world Eisenhower Trophy amateur championship in South Africa, had never scored an ace until he holed an "easy No 6 iron" at the par-3, 155m 15th.
"It was straight into the wind and I wasn't sure whether to hit a No 6 or No 7 iron. After talking to the caddy, I hit an easy No 6 iron and it started left, landed 5m short, kicked to the right and went in."
Gill, who shared the Bledisloe Cup with Taranaki's Troy Ropiha for leading amateur at the New Zealand Open last week, might have taken some time to get his first ace but while competing at the Eisenhower he saw three golfers do just that.
The hole-in-one inspired Gill, Waikato's No 1, to a 6 and 5 win against Poverty Bay-East Coast counterpart Micah Bremner and his team to a 4-1 win. Poverty Bay-East Coast had upset Southland 3-2 in the morning round.
The shock result in division two was Manawatu-Wanganui's 3-2 victory over one of the tournament's favourites, Wellington, three-time champions in the past nine years. The combined team had lost to Taranaki in the morning whereas Wellington had drawn with last year's semifinalists Auckland.
Manawatu-Wanganui won the top three games through Riki Kauika, Ewan Westergaard, who beat national amateur champion Andrew Green, and No 3 Malcolm Wells. Richard Pegg was the only Wellington player to score a double on the day.
Southland opened their account in round two with a 3-2 win against Taranaki.
In division one, titleholders North Harbour were impressive in overcoming Aorangi, first-round 4-1 winners over Hawkes Bay.
The seasoned Aorangi No 1, Peter Hayes, notched up his team's only win in the bottom match and bagged six birdies but Harbour's top four all won before the 16th and junior international Samuel Shin birdied five of seven holes on the back nine when beating 14-year-old Tim Leonard.
Bay of Plenty's resurgence was led by Mark Smith and Jared Pender but No 1 Danny Lee went down at the last to Gary-John Hill, who was 2-under.
- NZPA
