Golf: St Clair tops table after beating Island Park

Stephen Hitchcox
Stephen Hitchcox
The St Clair men's team beat Island Park 4-2 on Saturday to go to the top of the Senior A metropolitan table with 10 points and 14.5 games after four rounds.

St Clair is unbeaten with three wins and a half, and its promotion to No1 was helped when Chisholm Park, playing at home, dished out a 4 2 loss to Otago Gold, which led after three rounds.

After bombing out to Taieri at Taieri in round three, Otago Blue had its revenge, beating the Mosgiel golfers 4.5 1.5 at Balmacewen.

St Clair had a tight game against its nine hole host with Chris Snow at No6 posting the only sizeable margin, beating Nicholas James with four holes to spare.

At No1, Brent McEwan thrived on returning to his childhood playground, beating local greenkeeper Michael Minty on the final green.

McEwan's back to back eagles on the 12th and 13th holes proved to be the difference at the end of the match.

St Clair No2 Ryan Bellamy was in a strong position at dormie three ahead of Michael Wray but he lost 16 and 17 and narrowly squeaked home on the final green.

Stephen Hitchcox (No5) put St Clair ahead with a crucial 1 up win over fellow masters representative Gary Creedy. He turned one behind but won three of the next four holes to lead by two, which was sufficient to stave off Creedy's back nine challenge.

For Island Park, Kelly Adam (No3) and Andrew Hobbs (No4) won their games at the expense of Michael Ormandy and Jakob Bleach respectively.

After four rounds, Chisholm Park could not hide its delight at gaining its first points and toppling Otago Gold off top spot.

At No2, Cody McMullan was in fine form and was four under par when he beat Jodin Johnston on the 12th hole.

Otago Gold No1 Harry Smith evened the score when he downed Conor Jamison 3 and 2 but the remaining four games all went the distance and all finished at dusk on the final green.

The Park tail of Murray Collie and Peter Rae both posted one up wins, while at No3 Sean Geary won the final hole to beat Peter Lamb by a margin of two.

Gold's Murray Edgar was three down with five holes to play but came home strongly to beat Kyle Geary on the final green.

In the rematch between Otago Blue and Taieri, No6 Ian Boath was the only winner for his team, beating Jason Hughes 3 and 2.

At No2, Callum Stringer is rapidly improving in this environment and he held Balmacewen senior champion Duncan Croudis to a half after a tight tussle.

No3 Moxy Smith and No5 Brandon Hodgson took the pressure off Otago Blue, both posting 5 and 4 wins, over Brett Kennelly and Elliot Hornbrook respectively.

Nick Borren won the battle between the No1 golfers on the final green and Daniel Elder beat Ken Shaw with one hole to spare.

St Clair hosts Chisholm in round five and Taieri will play Island Park at home, but the feature match will be between the two Balmacewen teams, with the Blues (A team) out to repay the Golds for their costly winless drubbing in round two.

 

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