Till last weekend, local couple Marti and Matt Groves had played the Skyline Classic golf pairs tournament about 15 times for a best result of 54th.
They therefore got a big shock on Sunday afternoon to discover they’d won Queenstown Golf Club’s 44th Classic by no less than three stableford points.
‘‘It’s very cool indeed,’’ Matt says.
He credits Marti for the win — ‘‘she carried us [during Saturday’s better-ball stableford], I did my best to lose it on the first day’’.
However, they both performed well in Sunday’s combined stableford, despite Marti not feeling well in the morning — ‘‘she was lying in bed till about 11.30, but she came right’’.
Living in close proximity to the Kelvin Heights course, Matt says they’ve latterly been playing there most weekends.
‘‘It’s such a great event, it’s well run.
‘‘It’s quite hard to win, the way it’s formatted, you have to be quite lucky to get the roll of the dice.’’
Runners-up on countback were locals Bruce Boivin and John Petre.
In sixth place, meanwhile, were Queenstown’s Alan Brown, 83, the only player who’s teed up in every Classic, and his 14-year-old great-grandson Mostyn Brown, who lives in Christchurch — Alan’s son Simon and grandson Jeremy were also in the field.
After Saturday, Alan and Mostyn had led the tournament, which attracted 98 pairs, on countback.
