Golf: Youth over experience on fairways and greens

Wellington No 5 Peter Brinsdon chips on to the sixth green at the interprovincal championship at the Otago Golf Club yesterday. Photo by Jane Dawber

Take a look around the interprovincial championship at the Otago Golf Club this week and it feels more like a 21st party than a golf tournament.

It really is a young man's game. The gym gets more of a workout than the bar.

The Auckland team does not have anyone aged over 21.

Hawkes Bay has a 14-year-old in its ranks, and Bay of Plenty has a team of youngsters.

Otago, with an average age of 30, has the oldest of the teams at the tournament, while Peter Brinsdon (49), who has played at No 5 this week for Wellington, is the oldest among the 75 players lining up.

He has racked up a couple of wins and three losses at the tournament.

''It does make me feel young, playing against these guys. But it is pretty much a young person's sport now,'' he said.

''A lot of these guys practise a hell of a lot and that is all they do, or they have a job built around their golf. When you get a bit older, you find you don't have that time. You've got a job or family to look after.''

Brinsdon, the general manager of Wellington Golf, said experience did help during the week, and it was a tough physical task playing on such a hilly course.

He first went to a interprovincial tournament in 1985, playing for Aorangi, and admitted he felt everyone was older then, although he ''was a lot younger back then''.

''At the elite level, guys are getting a lot younger and getting that international experience. But the standard of masters golf is getting higher all the time.''

Hawkes Bay youngster Max Gill played at No 4 for his side, and is believed to be the youngest at the championship.

The 14-year-old was born in Korea but moved to New Zealand when he was 3 and started playing golf when he was 7.

Auckland selection convener Warren Leitch had a team which varied in age from 18 to 21 and was the youngest the province had picked. It was selected with an eye to the future, he said.