Golf champion well prepared to defend title

Press, 6 February 1986, Page 30

Golf champion well prepared to defend title

By

BOB SCHUMACHER

On the score of fitness and form Paul Minifie should not be found wanting when he defends his Canterbury stroke championship over 72 holes at Waitikiri at the week-end.

An excellent field, which includes the Otago international, Kim McDonald, and the multiple title-holder, Ross Murray, of Timaru, will compete in the first of the main Canterbury golf tournaments this year. Minifie, runner-up in 1984, went one better in the Cobra-sponsored championship last year when he overtook the third-round leader, Rick Vincent, in the early stages of the fourth round and held on to beat that golfer by one shot. Minifie, aged 23, has adopted a similar programme to last season and he has gained a had start over many of his favoured rivals by competing in a 72-hole stroke tournament last month. That was the annual Leopard national junior tournament on the Bridge Pa course in Hastings and Minifie finished a meritorious third with a fourround total of 292. “It was my best score in five years of playing the tournament,” said Minifie yesterday. Even though he finished 11 strokes behind the winner, Paul Devenport, the Wellington No. 1, Minifie was encouraged by his early season showing and said that he was keeping the ball in play and was “reasonably happy” with his form. A practice round “of

close to par” at Waitikiri on Tuesday afternoon indicated that the Waitikiri No. 1 was in fine fettle for his title defence. He will be wanting a strong performance for he has mapped a busy schedule for himself in the next two months. The South Island championship, the Southland invitational — “if I’m selected” — and the New Zealand amateur championship in Wellington in April are all part of his early season programme. Not so confident of a forward showing, however, is the New Zealand representative and Canterbury No. 1 for the last three years, Brent Paterson. Paterson, still seeking his first individual Canterbury senior championship, admitted yesterday that he was “struggling” even though he had played more than usual at this time of the year. “It has been mainly social golf, I haven’t hit so many practice balls as previously,” said Paterson, the joint runner-up (with Minifie) in 1984 and seventh place-getter last year. “I played in the Templeton Summer open last Sunday and was well down with rounds of 77 and 81. I had no birdies and quite a few threeputts,” said Paterson, who added: “It will be more good luck than manage-

ment if I finish in front.” The durable Murray, seven times the champion and third last year, will lodge a formidable challenge to Canterbury’s best, and the presence of the left-handed Otago No. 1 McDonald, and his highly regarded team-mate, Chris Timms, who lost only one of seven matches at last year’s Government Life tournament, will enrich the senior field which has 29 players on handicaps from scratch to three. Another outside force might well be lan Donaldson, from Tasman, who had a course record of 66 in the third round last year when he finished sixth. All of Canterbury’s top players have entered and the three champions before Minifie, John Williamson, John Sanders and Mark Street, are all bidding for a second title. John Crawford-Smith, who finished sixth in the Leopard tournament an runner-up to Joe Gantley in the Templeton open last Sunday, has started the season promisingly, while two former champions, James Angus and Murray Brown, Gantley, Vincent and the Waitikiri New Year champion, Craig Mitchell, are other possibilities in a strong and open field.