Off the tee: Bay stick with winners

Bay of Plenty and North Harbour, who fought out the final of the Interprovincial Championship at Whangarei last year, will come to this year's tournament at Christchurch with contrasting lineups.

The Bay, who won last year, will return with the same team who lifted the trophy at Sherwood Park.

North Harbour will have only one survivor after a series of defections in the past few weeks.

Bay of Plenty's preparations have followed much the same pattern as last year with their victory in the Garrard Shield contest against Waikato, Northland and Auckland at Ohope Beach last weekend.

There was no surprise when they named Mark Smith, Jae An, Terry Hong, George Kinghorn and Jason McIntosh to defend the trophy at Coringa from November 18.

Harbour have yet to name their team, but Josh Carmichael, who was number four last year, is the sole survivor and is likely to be at number one.

Phil Mosley, No 5 last year, has been unavailable since the start of the season. He has been joined recently by No 1 James Davis and No 3 Chris Johns.

Teenager Andrew Park, who was one of the stars of the team at No 2 last time, has been playing in Korea and qualified for the national under-19 side, ending his plans to return to New Zealand.

After the North Harbour strokeplay championship at Huapai this weekend, the selectors will choose a team to play in a quadrangular with Wellington, Canterbury and Tasman at Coringa the following weekend. They will name their five for the nationals at the end of that tournament.

Auckland, who beat Waikato and Northland in the Garrard Shield but lost to Bay of Plenty, will have Logan Holzer at No 1 for the nationals followed by Kevin Chun, Richard Hislop, Travis O'Connell and Ross Valentine.

Waikato will be very strong at the top of the order with New Zealand representatives Brad Shilton and Mathew Holten, followed by Mark Boe, Mark Purser and James Gill.

Former cricket international Alex Tait will lead Northland, for whom Michael Perrin moves up to number two, followed by Jeremy Hay, Dale Clarke and Richard Poole.

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New Zealand has finished in a share of third place in the Spirit International golf tournament in the United States at the weekend.

The New Zealand men's team of Bradley Iles and Mathew Holten were second in their event. The women's pairing of Penny Newbrook and Kyla Welsh were 10th in the novel international fourball teams event involving 16 nations.

Wellington's Iles was the star performer, bagging 20 birdies during his four rounds, the best of any player at the Whispering Pines course in Texas.

The United States were the overall winners with a combined 523, 53 under par.

The Americans also headed the men's and women's team competitions.

However, the Kiwis men's pair made their mark at the championship, finishing only two shots behind the Americans on 265, 23-under par for the four rounds.

The New Zealanders showed their experience, opening with a four-under 68 followed by rounds of 65, 64 and 68.

The American women finished on a 28-under par tally of 260, 12 shots clear of Australia.

The New Zealand pair finished with a three-under par 285. Newbrook and Welsh started strongly with a five-under 67 before rounds of 73, 71 and a closing 74, Welsh picking up 10 birdies during the tournament.

New Zealand finished with a combined total of 550 for both men and women, 26-under par, to finish third equal with Finland.