REPORT ON THE 2016 TSB BANK NELSON FESTIVAL OF GOLF

This year’s tournament was moved from its previous date of October to the first week in May. What a great decision that turned out to be! The tournament was bathed in glorious Nelson sunshine from start to finish, and the competitors loved every minute of it.

Golfers attended from over 30 golf clubs in New Zealand from Northland to Otago and everywhere in between.

This was the third time that this event had been held, and the consensus of opinion was that it was the best one yet. The tournament benefited from a new major sponsor in the TSB Bank Ltd, a wholly owned New Zealand bank, and if they look after their customers as well as they looked after our competitors, then they are certainly a bank to consider changing to!

Local Nelson Service Centre Manager Brent Williams was in attendance all week and welcomed everyone who played in the tournament. Not only that, he and the TSB Bank marketing team came up with tremendous offers to everyone playing in the event.

The golf courses were in great condition, considering the dry summer we have had this year. The competitors also loved the different challenges offered by each location and the views from every course which are absolutely world class.

The tournament itself was well contested and the first day team event winners were: Vicky Turner (from Omanu), Pru Bell, Alan Bradnock, and Geoff Moffett (from Nelson) along with Kaye Maree Mihaljivich, Christine Johnson, Trish Armstrong and Bronwen Eccleshall (from Te Ngutu).

The main competition was a three day accumulated stableford score in three divisions and the top three in each division were:

Ladies:

1st: Sue Bassett (Te Puke) 105 points

2nd: Kaye Maree Mihaljivich (Te Ngutu) 101 points

3rd: Shirley Buckley (Tokoroa) 99 points

Men Div 1:

1st: Bradley Ranger (Greenacres) 106 points

2nd: Peter Chatfield (The Grange) 103 points

3rd: Steve Hinton (Mangawhai) 100 points

Men Div 2:

1st: Neil Whitehead (Kaikoura) 103 points

2nd: Peter Harman (Nelson) 101 points

3rd: Spiro Cosmatos (Kaikoura) 99 points

OVERALL TOURNAMENT CHAMPION:

Rod Boreham (Tokoroa) 111 points

The tournament champion with the overall best stableford score of 111 was Rod Boreham of Tokoroa. Rod played superb golf all week on the challenging courses and was the only player to finish the week under his handicap, which is 5 – a fantastic effort indeed. Well done Rod !

This tournament is growing in reputation as a friendly tournament, and the comments received from this year’s entrants were very encouraging.

If you want to see the photos from this year, check them out at www.nelsongolf.co.nz.

We have already had phone calls and emails from around New Zealand and even from Australia with people enquiring about next year’s dates; so we are at the early stages of confirming next year’s event to allow the visitors to the region time to get travel and accommodation arrangements booked.

If you are interested in playing next year please email us at nelson@golf.co.nz and we will keep you posted with updates on the event.

Derek Drysdale

Tournament Director

2016 TSB Bank Nelson Festival of Golf