Off the tee: Last Post sounds for Papakura

At a time when many golfers struggle to get tee times, one Auckland club is going out of business.

The Papakura Camp Club will cease to exist on June 30. Its 18-hole course is expected to be sold, mostly for housing development.

The club has been under sentence of death since the Army decided the camp was surplus to requirements 12 years ago.

The course is on Army land and the club has been on a month's notice to quit.

But Defence Department plans to sell the land have been held up in the courts because of disputes between the original owners, the McLennan family, and the Army over valuations.

Meantime, the club and its 500-odd members - no longer restricted to Services personnel - have been lobbying unsuccessfully for the land to be retained for golf. They had hoped the Papakura District Council would buy it.

Now the council has bought the six holes alongside McLennan Park for a flood scheme involving a permanent lake and some playing fields, and the club has been on borrowed time since the end of March. The remaining land is zoned residential.

The club hopes to be able to maintain the course until the end of June when it will shut its doors for the last time.

Golf has been played on McLennan land since the 1920s, but the present club was formed by the Army, for the Army, in 1960.

Membership restrictions were gradually eased to allow all Services people, and later public servants. In recent years anyone could become a full member for $451 a year.

The original course had nine holes, later extended to 12. In 1980, six more were added after members spent many hundreds of hours developing what had been swampland.

Bruce Hayhow, a long-time member and the last secretary-manager, believes a great opportunity to retain a valuable asset for the area has been lost.

He intends to retire for the third time after the "wake" on June 30.

Members this year have had three-monthly subscriptions and they will use up the first of those before having to move elsewhere.

Club champion Fred Watts has kept the club's name to the fore in representative golf.

He was a member of the successful Auckland masters team last season. Polly King, a force in Auckland golf for many years, is a former member.

But perhaps the best-known member is the redoubtable Graeme Cooke - or Warrant Officer Sergeant-at-Arms Cooke as he was in his Service days.

In retirement, he transferred his skills to the New Zealand Golf Association and organised the scoreboards and infrastructure of all the major national tournaments, becoming a life member of the association.

He was closely involved in the planning and development of the six holes added at Papakura in 1980. But he missed the grand opening day that December when he was posted to Singapore.

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Auckland women's golf lost one of its stalwarts with the death in an accident of Sheila Glendining aged 80.

Glendining combined a successful career as a physiotherapist with many years of representative golf and administration at the highest level.

She joined the Auckland Ladies Golf Club as a junior and was in Auckland's Russell Grace teams for the interprovincial championships for 11 years between 1954 and 1970.

She was Auckland champion of champions in 1956.

Glendining was elected as the Auckland executive member on the NZLGU in 1986 and served as council member until 1992, being deputy-chairman in 1989-90.

She was the non-playing captain of the Queen Sirikit team in 1988, the Commonwealth team in 1991 and the winning Tasman Cup team that year.

Glendining, who had been Auckland Golf Club women's champion 13 times, was made a life member in 1999.

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The final battle for the semifinal places in the Auckland Bissett Shield pennants will be fought at Titirangi on Sunday.

The Grange and Manukau seem assured of places, but Titirangi (46 points), Auckland (44) and Akarana and Whitford Park (42) will battle for the other two.

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Donna Gardner and Barbara Larsen from the Hutt Club have won the national autumn foursomes at the Palmerston North Golf Club.

In the final they beat Patsy Hankins and Carol Newth from Taupo 4 and 3.

The NZLGU Salver went to Robyn Knight (Mt Maunganui) and Hazel Bryant (Te Awamutu).

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With rounds of 77, 73 and 74, Marnie McGuire finished in 35th place with an eight-over total of 224 in the 54-hole Office Depot championship in Los Angeles.

Annika Sorenstam won the tournament with a five-under total. Only four players broke par.