There will be no Cinderella story at this weekend’s Metropolitan senior A final after both top seeds made it through to the big dance.
The St Clair Saints will have a chance to avenge last year’s home defeat to the Otago Bombers after a relatively comfortable victory over Chisholm Links at St Clair while the Bombers were forced into overtime, running out winners on the first playoff hole over the St Clair Devils around Balmacewen.
At St Clair the home side were never really troubled by Links — at the halfway point they had four games in their favour and two tied up.
Parker Aluesi eventually pulled away from Mike Weastell to secure a place in the final but the remaining two games went the way of the visitors, Mackenzie Gibson defeating Matt Crawford 3/1 and Blair Liffiton downing Cody McMullan 2/1.
The two games for Links cap a solid season for the beachsiders who will be top prospect for finals next year if they can keep their squad together.
At Balmacewen it was heartbreak for the St Clair Devils who had their noses in front through 12 holes, eventually leading to a playoff, the first in recent memory.
The Devils landed the first blow with Phil Bungard saving his best golf of the season to defeat Michael Smith 5/4 before Duncan Croudis replied in the same group over Steve Hitchcox to square up the fixture.
Callum Judkins was always in control against Ryan Littlejohn, adding a second win for the Bombers but the rest of the games were in the balance and all went to the 18th.
The battle of the No 4's between Ben Patston (Bombers) and Luke Worthington (Devils) had a huge bearing on the result. Worthington led most of the game only to be run down by Patston on the final green to give the Bombers three wins.
However, the Bombers top duo of Luke Murdoch and Brandon Hodgson were down most of the way against Callum White and Logan Clarke respectively. Clarke staved off Hodgson thanks to a long putt on the final green to give the Devils two wins.
Murdoch had the chance to halve his match to put the Bombers through but a cruel lip-out from 1m gave the win to White, sending Croudis and Bungard down the par-5 first hole for a play-ff.
Both were in play from the tee and found bunkers before Bungard recovered to 4m. Croudis recovered just as well and both putted for birdie.
Croudis put the pressure on by holing his 5m putt which Bungard could not match sending the Bombers into Sunday’s final.
— Michael Minty
