Goroka team win PM’s golf cup

By JACK AMI
THE National Cocoa Board claimed the Prime Minister’s Corporate Golf Challenge at the Royal Port Moresby Golf Club on Friday.
Deputy Prime Minister Charles Abel repeated last year’s effort at the first hole, teeing off the event mid-morning as more than 50 teams took to the course for the Team PNG fund-raising event.
The winning team were led by Goroka MP Henry Ame and included Ben Nagare, Paul Danny and Guri Paul.
The first prize was four return tickets to Sydney sponsored by Air Niugini.
Team Minerals Resources Development Company finished second with the Coffee Industry Corporation also from Goroka coming in third.
Team MRDC earned four return tickets to Brisbane while CIC received four return tickets to Cairns.
The team registration of more than 50 teams was a great turn out — higher than last year’s numbers.
Event sponsor The National had two teams, one of which was led by general manager Andy Ng, which participated in the event.
The Eastern Highlanders (all players from the winning team were from the same province) managed to out-score the rest of the field, most of whom were Port Moresby-based teams, and take the title to Goroka for the first time in the history of event.
The Cocoa Board edged reigning champions MRDC by two strokes 54-52 in the four-man ambrose event.
Ame, who is the Vice Minister for Agriculture and Livestock, said he was proud of his team’s effort and of the fact that they had flown the flag for their province. “We trained for two weeks in Goroka and flying down to Port Moresby and went to the course to familiarise and try out for few days beforehand and I think that paid off in the end,” Ame said.
“We’ll be back to defend the title next year and maybe we’ll have more teams from Goroka and other parts of the country involved too.”
MRDC team captain Lucas Komane said his side did their best but came up short in the end.
“We were unlucky to miss out by a couple of strokes. We missed a couple of birdies on the back nine and that cost us,” Komane said.
Team MRDC had a slightly altered line-up from last year comprising Komane, George Danny, Ali Poka and Kevin Wapa. The event was organised to have only two players from each team start on each hole.