N.Z. Amateur Golf Championships

The final of the New Zealand amateur golf championship was a modern-day David and Goliath fight. Goliath, in the form of the burly New Zealand representative, Ted McDougall, was quite awesome with the length and power of his play. David was the slim outsider Graham Stevenson who, like his biblical counterpart, proved that accuracy and steadiness under pressure were an effective answer to strength. Not that McDougall hurled the championship away. He didn't, by any means. But he could not match the unerring accuracy of the Waikare player. This was a final to remember. It finished at the 35th hole after a gigantic struggle and it could well have gone to the 36th hole had McDougall holed a chip which lipped the cup at the 35th. Stevenson won 2 and 1.

But there was more to this national tournament on the Nelson Golf Club's course than the final. The week-long contest drew the country's top amateurs to the biggest amateur tournament of the year. A feature of it was the youthfulness of many of the contenders, and some of them performed admirably. Among them were three Nelson golfers, Graeme Lummis (runner-up N.Z. plate), Brian Wislang (who won through to the quarter-finals) and Darryl Templeman (who won his first championship match and gave McDougall a stern fight in his second). The course itself was a credit to the club and the greenkeepers, and the organisation of the tournament, we were told by a visitor, left nothing to be desired. Our pic above shows the 6841-yd (71-par) course from the air and, at left, a very happy Graham Stevenson with his trophy.