Island Park, which is competing in the top metropolitan pennant series for the third year, is already making its mark.
It shares the lead with Otago Blue after the second round in Dunedin over the weekend.
The Waldronville club followed its first-round upset win over defending champion St Clair Blue with an impressive 4.5-1.5 win over leader Chisholm Links at home yesterday.
A rapidly improving Jarden Hammond hit some impressive drives coming home to beat Links No1 Mark Collie with one hole to spare.
No2 Mike Wray was always in command in his match against Links Peter Rae. The Island Park tail wagged with Michael Minty and Monty Wong both winning on the 15th green.
No 4 Kelly Adam put the icing on the cake for Island Park by halving with Jason Pegler while in the absence of Sean and Kyle Geary, Brent Butler was the only Chisholm player to notch a win.After losing in round one, St Clair Blue was put under the pump by St Clair Gold and was fortunate to escape with a half.
St Clair Blue No1 Ryan Bellamy and No4 Paul Brouwer both won while St Clair Gold’s tail wagged with Troy Ferguson and Nathan Swift evening the score.
St Clair Gold looked set to post an upset with Ross Colquhoun one-up on Connor Ross with two holes to play.
Ross sank his second on the 17th for an eagle two but still looked set to lose after driving into the trees on the 18th.
However, he got on the green and sank a 7m putt to halve his match with Colquhoun on the final hole.No2 Jacob Bellamy executed the second Houdini act for the Blue team by sinking a 4m putt on the final green to halve with Matthew Crawford.
Several regular Otago Blue golfers were not available for the match against Otago Gold yesterday. Captain Brandon Hodgson was practising in Cromwell for today’s final-stage New Zealand Open qualifying event.
But the Blues roped in some talented players with Nick Borren, Sean Masters and Michael Smith coming into the sextet.All three had impressive wins while No2 Ben Patston beat Peter Lamb on the 17th green.
For Otago Gold, No3 Ben Turner and No4 Murray Edgar posted large margins but the Blue team still won its second game to match Island Park at the top of the table.
