For the third year running an Australian has won the New Zealand Women’s Senior Championships. Just completed at the Bay of Islands Golf Club, Victoria’s Sue Wooster won the title on the 18th after a closely fought battle against fellow Victorian Helen Pascoe, 2up.
Wooster is amassing a strong portfolio of international placings with a Canadian Women’s Seniors title, and runner up place at the British Women’s Seniors in 2017. She now has the New Zealand title to add to this impressive list.
Pascoe must have thought she was in line for the trophy when she started strongly and turned 3 up, after nine. Pascoe won the 10th to go 4 up, only to bogey the 11th against Woosters par, and the match somehow turned against her.
Both players struggled with the narrow par 5, 12th to halve the hole in double bogeys. Pascoe then 3-putted both the 13th and 14th, and was back to 1 up. ‘The rest is history they say’, Wooster birded the 16th to square the match, and then made par vs a Pascoe bogey on the 17th, in front by one, with one hole to play. Pascoe conceded on the 18th when she realised she could not win the hole to force a play-off.
Earlier in the day, the Australian pair had ousted out the ‘Southland Robyn’s and with it, New Zealand’s hopes of getting back the coveted trophy. Wooster needed all 18 holes to take out Robyn Pullar (Invercargill), 1 up. while Robyn Boniface (Queens Park) lost to Wooster, 3 and 2.
NSW’s Kim Burke who was the awarded the NZG Senior Cup for best gross, was the defending champion, having won in 2017 at Waihi. In 2016, Sharon Dawson won the top trophy, at Te Anau. Both Burke and Dawson, are Australian.
The Kiwis can still smile knowing that the Australian Senior title is in good hands, with the current title holder being Robyn Boniface, a championship she won last year at the Maroochy River Golf club. Boniface was recognised tonight as New Zealand’s best placed Kiwi. She will receive a grant from PaR nz Golfing Holidays to compete later this year, at the 2018 Australian Women’s Seniors, in the Barossa on the Sandy Creek Golf Club.
The 2018 Championship was the 70th, the first played in 1948 at the Waipukurau Golf Course. The 2018 championship included players from 55 clubs around New Zealand and Australia, along with one UK entrant. 120 players in total. PaR nz Golfing Holidays, who manage the tournament under the auspices of New Zealand Golf, announced that the 71st New Zealand Women’s Seniors will be held at the Cromwell Golf Club.