New Zealand vs Australia final assured at NZ Amateur
IN: News | New Zealand Mens Amateur | New Zealand Amateur Championship (2003) | Round Two | by Bruce Young | 11 Apr 2003
In cold conditions, made even colder by a breeze that has arrived in the last couple of days, the New Zealand Amateur Championship has reached its semi-final stage, with two Australians and two New Zealanders to fight it out over thirty-six holes tomorrow for the right to advance to the thirty-six hole final on Sunday. It is somewhat unusual in amateur golfing circles in modern times for both the semi final and finals to be played over the thirty-six holes but it is something that New Zealand Golf has had in place for some twenty years.
New South Wales' James Nitties and Michael Sim from Perth will face off in one semi while Auckland's Dean Sipson and Manawatu's Hamish Robertson meet in the other. That of course assures a New Zealand / Australia final on Sunday.
Phil Aickin, the Tournament Director and Director of Golf for New Zealand Golf, said from Chisolm Park today that the venue had been an unqualified success in terms of the golf course but that the weather had taken a few victims. Tasmanian Robin Hodgetts was forced to default his quarterfinal match against Robertson after just a few holes with flu like symptoms. He was unable to continue which would have been great disappointment to the twenty six year old from the Mowbray Golf Club.
"In the strokeplay the weather had been quite benign and the scoring reflected that but over the last couple of days the low temperatures have been further reduced by the increased breeze", said Aickin. The players virtually to a man however have really enjoyed Chisholm Park as a golf course."
James Nitties has been one of the stars of Australian Amateur golf in recent times and to reach the final he had to tame arguably the hottest player in Australasian amateur golf at present, Kurt Barnes. Barnes had recently won the Riversdale Cup, was a member of the Australian Team that won the Four Nations Cup last week and won the New Zealand Strokeplay Championship on Wednesday in qualifying for the match play here. It was an intense struggle with Nitties, Barnes eventually winning through at the second extra hole.
Michael Sim is through via his convincing win over forty nine-year-old veteran Jim Lapsley who has only recently rekindled his enthusiasm for amateur golf. Lapsley was a stalwart of golf in New Zealand's south for many years and can be rightly pleased with his performance to get as far as he did. Sim is only eighteen but was the runner up to Kurt Barnes at the Australian Amateur at Indooroopilly in 2002 so has experience if not age on his side. He also played in the recent Johnnie Walker event in Perth as an invitee.
Dean Sipson, only recently reinstated as an amateur, won through to his semi against Robertson with a hard fought 19th hole win over Canadian Lindsay Bernakevitch. For 35-year-old Sipson it is a continuation of the form he showed in winning the New Zealand Mid Amateur event in Hamilton. After ten or so years in professional golf he will be pleased with his decision to return to the amateur ranks.
