Midlands retain Filande trophy

Editorial Comment
THE Midlands retained the Filande trophy which was held over the weekend at Norton Country Club.

THE Midlands retained the Filande trophy which was held over the weekend at Norton Country Club.

The Filande trophy is the men’s interprovincial trophy. The format of the tournament is matchplay and the players play four matches, two singles games, one betterball and one foursomes match.

In the individual awards Doctor Maphosa from the Midlands province was named player of the tournament after winning three of four matches and drawing one.

At this year’s event all the provinces managed to field very strong teams comprising mainly young golfers which made the event very competitive.

Previously Harare province used to dominate the event as they had a very strong team with even their B team being too strong for the other provinces.

These developments demonstrate that all the golfing provinces are spending time and resources on talent identification and development.

The effort being put in by the provinces was further highlighted by the composition of players shortlisted to represent the country at the upcoming Zone XI games to be played next month in Cape Town, South Africa.

The team is composed of golfers from all the provinces, unlike in the past where the team was composed of players mainly from the two major cities.

This year’s team includes Visitor Mapwanya a golfer from Renco mine.

 On the PGA tour Russel Henley (24) birdied the first play-off hole in fading light to edge out Northern Irishman Rory McIlroy, American Ryan Palmer and Scotland’s Russell Knox in a dramatic four man play off on Sunday afternoon at the Honda Classic in Florida. McIlroy had surrendered a big lead with an error-strewn 74 in the final round, though he made a birdie at the 72nd hole to qualify for the play-off after hitting a superb second shot only to miss the eagle putt. Henley, Palmer and Knox made mistakes over the closing stretch to finish level with McIlroy at eight-under-par 272. Palmer had the best chance to win in regulation, but he missed a five-footer for par at the 72nd hole. Henley appeared to have thrown away a chance of winning his second tournament when he hit his six-iron into the water at the par-three 15th for a double-bogey. But he steadied his seemingly sinking ship with pars on the final three holes, which was enough to make the play-off.  Zimbabwe’s Brendon de Jongé had a disastrous weekend. Going into the third round dé Jongé was one shot behind the leader and was paired with Rory McIlroy for Saturday’s round, but his weekend turned into a nightmare after shooting 76,78 over the final two rounds, dropping him from second all the way down to a tie for 63rd place.