Golf: Chadwick puts her faith in new driver | Hawkes Bay Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Hawkes Bay

When the big names come calling the pedigree players in the amateur ranks come to the sobering realisation they need to dig deep for their A game.

Napier Golf Club member Kate Chadwick knows all about that so come tomorrow she'll reach for the new driver in her golf bag before she tees up on the mound of her home course to defend the Audrey Mullany Salver in the annual Kapi Tareha Memorial 72-hole strokeplay tournament.

The tournament now forms part of the Lower North Island Order of Merit, attracting a strong field of 70 men and 24 women competing on 36 holes a day.

The elite amateurs are from Taranaki, Manawatu and Wellington as well as the cream of Hawke's Bay high flyers.

Traditionally, a big hitter of the ball (around the 230m mark), Chadwick is mindful a degree of control is essential in taming the man-made Garden of Eden on the dichotomy of the challenging Waiohiki layout.

"I'll be pulling out my new driver," the 19-year-old said yesterday, after buying a Titleist D2 club that offers an 8.5-degree loft.

"The ball stays lower and has more penetrating flight.

"It doesn't go up in the air and hang up there," the second-year nursing student at the Eastern Institute of Technology said, adding the shot would be high enough to carry in wet weather too.

Her putting is "coming on" so that's helpful but "everything else" is pretty average.

Asked to elaborate, Chadwick said her short game was thereabouts but "I could work on it a little bit more".

Her biggest challenge will come from Aucklander Larissa Eruera and Julianne Alvarez, of Wellington.

"I've seen Julianne. She's a good little golfer," the plus-one handicapper said of fourth-former Alvarez.

Nevertheless, Eruera will be an unknown quantity because she has just returned from the United States where she has secured a college scholarship.

The Bay challenge will come from bosom pal and fellow Napier member Jamie McIvor, a three handicapper, teenager Angela Jones, and veterans Kathy Olsen and Lyn Roberts.

Defending men's champion for the past three years, Pieter Zwart, has turned professional.

Tourney convenor and club captain David Good said it was hard to isolate favourites to etch their name on the silverware because of the calibre of the field, ranging from -2.6 to eight handicappers.

"I wouldn't want to take a punt on it. Richard Squire is coming too," he said of the former Bay Interprovincial amateur who turned professional before reverting to his amateur status and is now living in Wellington.

Another contender is Jack Leonards, of Palmerston North, who boasts a handicap of -2.5.