Dominic Sainsbury Golf Coach: Rotorua Boys High School WIN 2011 Super 8 Title

2011 Super 8 Golf finals

Poverty Bay Golf Club

Gisbourne

Competing teams – Rotorua Boys High; Tauranga Boys High; New Plymouth Boys High; Palmerston North Boys High; Hamilton Boys High; Napier Boys High; Gisbourne Boys High and Hastings Boys High.

Format - Medal (Gross) & Stableford

Rotorua Boys High School representative teams

Gross Team – William Howard (Captain), William Brown, Jason Kim and TeKotuku TeAute

Stableford Team – Luke Robinson, Piki Skerrett, Michael Harris and Tawhirimatea Witoko

We left Rotorua Boys High School on Sunday 13^th of March, it was a very hot and sunny day, our focus in the build up for this event had been on fitness, fluids and form. After one and a half hours in the Golf Academy Van we arrived at Opokiti Beach for our second stop, we had 20 minutes of light exercise followed by 10 minutes of leg, lower back and glute stretches. After another 2 hours travelling and another stop we arrived in Gisbourne and headed straight for the Poverty Bay Golf Club, where the boys were to map out the course and create two game plans for the tournament.

With the tournament day now upon us we heading to the Gisbourne Drive Time Golf range at 6.30am for a full warm up consisting of pitching, full swing and pre shot routines after 45 minutes we headed to the Golf Course for putting and chipping and at 7.36am our two team captains teed off, William Howard off the 1^st tee and Luke Robinson off the 10^th. The Poverty Bay Golf Course was in great condition with the greens running around 8 feet and there was not a cloud in the sky, making conditions near perfect.

After the first round the golf course proved to be the winner with some very high scoring, the best of the days play came from Tauranga’s 14 year old Jin Jeong who shot a great round of 2under par 70, the next best was Rotorua’s William Howard, unfortunately for Tauranga the rest of the team could not keep up with Jin’s great scoring and they found themselves in second place with Hamilton Boys, both teams were 4 shots behind the consistent Rotorua Boys High School

The second round was to be real turning point in the event with Rotorua Boys High School really showing their dominance with all four boys playing great golf Jason Kim 2 under par, William Brown 2 under par 70, William Howard even par 72 and TeKotuku TeAute 3 over par 75, with the best three out of the four rounds to count Rotorua Boys High had extended their lead to 14 shots after the second round.

Sprits were high after a great days golf and we headed back to the hotel for a cold water recovery session, this allows your muscles to be ready for the next days play. Again we were up very early and headed straight to the course for our 45 minute warm up, the draw the days play had been re done with the top four schools all playing together, this meant Rotorua, Tauranga, Hamilton and Palmerston North all played together, it was a great start with William Howard leading from the front and shooting a great 1 under par round 71, this not enough to beat the Tauranga number 1 Jin who shot 2 under par, this meant our lead was cut to 13 shots over Tauranga Boys, the Hamilton boys number 1 had been playing great golf and was 2 under par after five holes but poor hydration caused sun stroke and he had to pull out of the tournament.

This put Rotorua Boys high in a very commanding position and we only needed to the rest of the team to finish things off, Jason Kim was second to finish and struggled over the closing few holes and finished with a 81, this put us only 9 shots ahead of Tauranga Boys High with two groups still to play, William Brown heard that Jason had struggled to finish his round and lost his focus on the short 16^th hooking his ball into the lake and took a triple bogey he lost another shot on the 17^th and on the 18^th he cracked under his self-imposed pressure slicing two balls wildly into the deep rough of which he only found his second and took another triple bogey, he finished with an 83 and lead was cut to 3, TeKotuku TeAute also had a little trouble finishing off his round but held on for a 82 mean that one shot was clawed back and Rotorua Boys High Finished with a four shot victory.

Left to right – TeKotuku Te Aute, William Howard, William Brown and Jason Kim

Rotorua Boys High Stableford team dominated from the start to the finish and all played great golf lead by Team captain Luke Robinson and complemented with three great rounds of golf by Piki Skerrett, Tawhirimatea Witoko play great golf from tee to green and missed a few putts and still finished second overall in the individual honours only a few points behind Piki Skerrett, Michael Harris was very consistent and a great leader in the team and chimed in with three solid rounds.