Massive sporting sympathy for Hawke’s Bay and its golf

Peter Lampp is a sports commentator and former Manawatū Standard sports editor based in Palmerston North.

OPINION: Manawatū’s most ardent rivals in most sports have long hailed from Hawke’s Bay.

This fervor will surely have waned following the devastation caused by Cyclone Gabrielle.

On Sunday, few would have begrudge 17-year-old Hawke’s Bay golfer Zack Swanwick a win at the Super 6s at Manawatū Golf Club.

He had to escape the devastation to hit Thursday, and it became life-changing for Swanwick, who we believe was offered a four-year scholarship to a prominent American university by a Boy Scout who was in Hokowhitu.

CONTINUE READING:
* Hodge uses home conditions for early lead in Super 6s
* Super 6s tournament resumes after Cyclone wreaks havoc on Gabrielle
* Top pros at round of New Zealand Pro-Am

His father Vinny had ventured into the mud pile at Napier Golf Club in Waiohiki to retrieve his son’s clubs after much of the flood water receded. They were buried in the mud somewhere, so Zack borrowed another member’s bats.

A benevolent officer then allowed them to get through a roadblock and over rickety bridges to Napier Airport, where they flew to Palmerston North via Auckland.

While her family’s home next to a dam remained undamaged, Zack’s grandparents were trapped in the floods in Fernhill near Waiohiki. But as resourceful farmers, they climbed into an attic in an outbuilding and were rescued from the roof by helicopter.

Meanwhile, playing with borrowed golf clubs can be a nightmare. Zack, still at Taradale High School and coached by former Manawatū-Whanganui representative Andrew Henare, brandished a driver owned by Manawatū Club pro Alan Hyatt.

In the field of 84, Swanwick finished eighth after three days of stroke play to qualify for Sunday’s matchplay, where he reached the last eight.

He is the New Zealand U19 champion and won this year’s title in the North Island by an incredible 14 strokes.

The match-play final round format didn’t do Levin pro Tyler Hodge any favors, as he won the stroke play with 20-under par in six.

In his three rounds of stroke play, Hodge only bogeed once, and yet he had three bogeys in his only six holes of match play and was eliminated. That’s sports.

While players are enjoying the format, organizers could reward the strokeplay winner with a check, as in the past.

A few Kiwi players were in Australia but the quality of golf from the top players was still there in perfect conditions. The cyclone and canceled flights meant eight players from Hawke’s Bay and Auckland withdrew from an original squad of 94.

There was fear as the heavy rain and wind hit earlier in the week and the Manawatū River had a tight lap at the stop banks on Wednesday.

The Horizons Regional Council said the flood peaked at 24,000 feet near the golf club and had a peak flow of 7,000 cubic feet, putting it 15th on my list of floods recorded since the giant in 1880.

Fifty volunteers removed debris and by tournament time Superintendent Kiel Stechman was able to run the greens extra fast over 11 on the simpmeter on the third day in the remarkable calm, very rare for Manawatū.

The rain eased enough for Wednesday’s Pro-Am rounds, whose entry fees heavily subsidize the tournament. So much so that if the Pro-Am had been washed out, it would have been played on Thursday and the tournament shortened to three rounds.

The budget for the Charles Tour event is $110,000, of which $60,000 is prize money and part of the developer Brian Green.

Also in the field was a group of 11 South Koreans, including two pros, who made the Manawatū club their home for three months. They play more than 100 rounds and tee off twice a day, six days a week

Manager James Lovegrove wants a return to the 9-hole shootout of yesteryear, where a pro dropped out after each hole. So would anyone.

When Horizons Golf sponsored it, $10,000 was at stake.

On Sunday it took four shootouts to separate winner Jordan Loof and Auckland’s Jared Edwards, who shot a very nasty pen on the 18th.

To prove it wasn’t a hit and giggles, as Loof dropped his winning birdie putt, he roared and fist pumped like he’d won the Ryder Cup.

Why? These homegrown pros live on the brink. Loof said he has a legacy of narrow losses that led to “a few dark times,” so much so that he felt like giving up the sticks and getting a real job.

As a full-time pro from Royal Wellington, Sunday’s $10,800 win was the second best moment of his life. The best: when he got married in January.

He and his wife are moving to Edinburgh in two months to see Scotland’s famous golf courses and, like Hodge and others who have been to Manawatū, take part in the Clutch Pro Tour, a third tier feeder to the European Challenge Tour.