Wellington Triumph in The Quad
The 2014 Tasman Quad is an 8 man teams matchplay event between the Wellington, Canterbury, North Harbour and Tasman Golf Associations, and was held this year at The Marlborough Golf Club, Fairhall, in Blenheim.
The golf course is set in amongst the picturesque Marlborough wine trail, and sits immediately adjacent to The Villa Maria Wine Estate, and just down the road from the site of the Wither Hills Wine Estate scrub fire that doused the course in fine ash on Sunday afternoon.
Wellington’s first game against Canterbury on Saturday morning resulted in a 5-3 victory to Wellington. This included an impressive 7&5 win by Brayden Mazey over Canterbury number 3 Jason Yoo, and a convincing 5&4 win to Jono Cane over Canterbury number 1 Daniel Laughton.
The afternoon round saw North Harbour in the firing line. They were also soundly beaten 5-3, with Adam Church, Daniel Hillier and Jono Cane all completing their matches prior to the tee on the long par 3 sixteenth hole.
The final round on Sunday morning was a close affair, with Tasman fired up after seeing their province clinch an NPC rugby finals spot with a win over Canterbury the previous evening.
The match fittingly went down to the wire, with 6 of the 8 matches going to at least the 17th Hole to be decided. The 6&5 win to Tom Spearman Burn and 5&4 win to Brad Rowland were enough to spur the rest of the team to a narrow 4.5-3.5 victory, and in the process wrap up the Taswell Trophy for yet another year.
Although Wellington recorded the same amount of individual match wins as North Harbour, the overall team points are the deciding factor for the format of this tournament, and hence Wellington took out the overall honours.
This tournament win sits nicely alongside the recent Shand Cup win against Taranaki, Manawatu/Wanganui and Hawkes Bay, and the squad is now gaining some positive momentum as Wellington builds towards the 2014 Toro Interprovincial Championships, which are to be held at St Andrews in Hamilton from the 2nd till the 6th December.
The Wellington results can be viewed here