North West wins historic promotion in SA U-19 IPT

15 December 2017 – North West claimed the B-Division title in the South African Under-19 Inter-Provincial at East London Golf Club on Friday to earn a historic promotion.

Over the first four days of the championship North West dispatched Border, Free State, Mpumalanga and Northern Cape and scored the only clean sweep in this year’s championship over Limpopo.

North West started the final round in a very strong position and needed just 1.5 points to guarantee their victory.

Despite a valiant effort from Eastern Province in their final round clash, North West got the job done.

Andre van Dyk stretched their 3 – 1 Foursomes lead to  on when he knocked out Wian van Aswegen 5 & 4, but Jaco Anderson hit back, routing Malan Potgieter 4 & 3 to close the gap

Oliver Goldhill beat Tiaan van der Bank 3 & 2 to take the team’s tally to 5 – 2, but Lumkile Mantshiyo whipped Charles Pieterse 4 & 3 to give Eastern Province a glimmer of hope. Andrew Jeffrey downed Rorisang Nkosi 2-up and Geshaine Matthews won 1-up against Ray Janse van Rensburg to level the scores.

At 5-all, Tshimollo Mapefane beat Curtley Stofberg 2-up and number one Christiaan Burke halved with Reece Coleman to drive home a 6.5 – 5.5 victory.

Six-for-six in matches played and full marks earned North West the coveted promotion and their debut in the A-Division next year.

Border bounced back from their fourth round loss to North West to beat Limpopo 9 – 3 and the local favourites finished the championship with 10 points, and with a well-deserved second place in the standings.

Eight points moved Eastern Province into third.

Goldhill from North West edged out fellow team member Tshimolo Mapefane and Andrew Jeffrey from Eastern Province by just half a point to win the Most Valuable Player honour.

Goldhill won all his singles and collected 5.5 points in the foursomes to take the top spot with 11.5 points.

B-DIVISION RESULTS
Limpopo 3.0 vs Border 9.0
North West 6.5 vs Eastern Province 5.5
Free State 5.5 vs Mpumalanga 6.5

B-DIVISION FINAL LOG
(Pos-Union-Played-Won-Drawn-Lost-Points-Matches won)
1 North West (6, 6, 0, 0, 12, 56.5)
2 Border (6, 5, 0, 1, 10, 43.5)
3 Eastern Province (6, 4, 0, 2, 8, 45.5)
4 Mpumalanga (6, 3, 0, 3, 6, 35.5)
5 Free State (6, 1, 0, 5, 2, 28.5)
6 Limpopo (6, 1, 0, 5, 2, 22)
7 Northern Cape (6, 1, 0, 5, 2, 20.5)

Written and released by Lali Stander on behalf of GolfRSA, a SAGA and WGSA Not-For-Profit company.