A change of emphasis in the past three years, along with the appointment of Otago representative Michael Smith as the Sport Otago golf coach, has led to a wealth of talent and depth in the younger ranks.
Otago beat Aorangi at Chisholm Park yesterday to retain the Piper Cup while the same team dominated Southland 7.5 to 2.5 to win the Ben McCorkindale Memorial trophy.
For Otago, Thomas Facer was the anchor player, continuing his run of match play successes with convincing wins over Josh Smith (Aorangi) and Daniel O'Conner (Southland).
Other players in the Otago 10-man team to post two wins were Thomas Griffin, Anthony McCullough, Ryan Littlejohn and Adam Han, while Josh Kahukura emerged unbeaten with a win and a half.
The event has been keenly contested for many years but one sad aspect of this year's event was that Southland could only field six players.
Otago provided four extra players for its ailing neighbours and Cody McMullan, Cameron Edgar, Ryan Shuttleworth and Inia Logan performed well, posting five wins and a half as stand-ins, which augurs well for the future and depth of Otago junior golf.
But their scores failed to count in the final analysis and an 8 to 2 win by Southland over Aorangi was reversed to a 6 to 4 win to Aorangi over Southland to win the Simpson Cup.
