Otago Blue has taken an impressive lead in the coastal men's senior pennant series after a 3-3 draw with St Clair and a 6-0 win over Balmacewen Gold at the weekend.
The unbeaten Balmacewen team has 16 points and 28.5 games and is well ahead of St Clair, which has 10 points and 22.5 games.
North Otago and Chisholm Park drew 3-3 at Oamaru, while Otago Blue rolled its B team 6-0 in a catch-up game yesterday.
The feature match was between St Clair and Otago, with St Clair having home advantage on a wet Corstorphine course.
St Clair was in command for most of the contest and, early in the back nine, was ahead in four and square in another match.
At No 2, Tyrone Ratahi took first blood for the Otago team beating Chris Snow with five holes to spare.
But Brent McEwan and Andrew Hobbs tilted the odds in favour of St Clair with wins over Michael Smith and Jamie Anstiss.
The Balmacewen comeback started when No 6 Luke Murdock came from behind to win 16 and 17 to snatch a half with Greg Johnson.
With one hole to play, St Clair No 3 Tony Giles was 1-up playing the final hole against Brandon Hodgson while Otago No 4 Jason Hughes was all square with Stephen Hitchcox.
Hitchcox pulled his approach to the final green and had a horrendous kick into a bad lie and an almost unplayable stance.
When he failed to get up and down, Hughes took the match with a par 4.
Hodgson was 3-down at the turn but fought back with birdies at 10, 12 and 13 to trail by one playing the final hole.
He holed a 4m birdie putt on the final green to halve his match with Giles and give Otago the valuable team half.
In Oamaru, Gary Creedy, Michael Ormandy and John Cunningham posted wins for North Otago while Chisholm Park's Mark Collie, Sean Geary and Peter Rae made it three apiece in a contest which always looked like a draw.
Otago Blue recorded a 6-0 romp over the club's B team yesterday. St Clair will meet Chisholm Park in another catch-up game next Sunday after courses were closed a week ago.
