A cool blustery day greeted players for round four of the 2022 Woodward Cup at Russley Golf Club, and there were some interesting results.
When Pegasus and Templeton last met it was in the 2021 Final and it was a very close result. Their match on Sunday was no different with a tense 4-4 draw, that came down to the last group in the match, with Shaun Allan halving his game against Dan Laughton in unfortunate circumstances after holding a 1up lead playing the last. Dean Harvey, Phil Stephens, and Ian Blount all won for Pegasus, while Marcus Mariu halved with Nick Franzmann. For Templeton David Zohrab, Ryan Bellamy and Josh Simpson had wins. As well as the two halves, three other games were decided on the last hole, showing how close the match was.
Frontrunners Clearwater continued on their winning way with a 6-2 win over Waitikiri. Dom Brettkelly, Sam McGill, Cooper Moore, Sam Harris, Seb May and Will Bastings all won for Clearwater, while Masters reps Aaron Forsyth and Brett Turner got the wins for Waitikiri. Clearwater took the opporunity to play a couple of their youngsters and will be pleased to see their young talent playing well.
Bottle Lake caused a mild surprise when they drew with an in-form Avondale unit. Their top players Andrew Green and Jed Robertson both had wins along with Steve Dellow and Daniel Asplin at the bottom of the order. For Avondale it was the middle order that came through with wins to Teariki Tangiiti, Mac Mitchell, Richard Sinclair and Sam Purdon.
Christchurch got back on track with a good win over Harewood 5-3. At the top Peter Lee had a good 5/4 win over Aorangi rep Josh Smith, and will surely be in the Canterbury selectors minds after having previously represented Bay of Plenty and returning from the Pro ranks. Other wins for Christchurch went to Mika MacDonald, Jason Sincock, Russell Fildes, and Alisdair Reid. For Harewood James Howard, Kerry Branson and Scott Manyweathers notching up his 50th Woodward Cup victory, all had wins.
Russley moved into semi-final contention with an 8-0 rout of Weedons. To be fair there were some close matches with Ben Baker, Michael McAuley, and Owen Burgess all winning on the last hole. The game of interest was Canterbury Junior Golfer of the Year Yuki Miya against Max Edwards who put in a spirited effort before succumbing to Yuki 2/1.
Unbeaten Clearwater remain on top of the table with Templeton, Avondale, Russley, and Pegasus next and in semi-final contention.
The next round is this Sunday at Harewood teeing off at 8.30am.
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