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Victorian pair David Diaz and Andre Stolz came out on top at the Settlers Run Legends Pro-Am on Tuesday with six-under rounds of 66.
Diaz took full advantage of the still morning conditions with a bogey free round that could have been more if not for two eagle putts that came awfully close to dropping.
In the afternoon field, Stolz put himself in with a chance by reaching three-under through eight holes but it was a large charge that pushed him into a share of the lead.
He birdied his final three holes to stay on top of the SParms PGA Legends Tour Order of Merit.
A shot back from Stolz and Diaz was New Zealand’s Michael Long who eagled the par 5 16th to put himself in the mix.
Next up on the SParms PGA Legends Tour schedule is the Club Mandalay Legends Pro-Am on Thursday.
Andre Stolz, Nick Robb and Mike Harwood all shot four-under rounds of 68 to share the honours at the South Yarra Volkswagen Legends Pro-Am at Southern Golf Club on Monday.
The victory was Robbins’ first in a SParms PGA Legends Tour event and he was thrilled that his personal milestone came at such a brilliant Melbourne Sandbelt golf course.
Harwood admitted that as pennant manager at Southern, he felt under pressure to perform and he managed to find some form of old on the day.
For Stolz, the win furthered his hopes of a third straight SParms PGA Legends Tour Order of Merit title as he sits at the top of the standings and gained more valuable points.
A shot back from the winning trio were Queenslanders Brad Burns and Terry Price, and Victorian David Diaz.
The field at the home club of the late Bob Shearer was comprised 50 Senior professionals and they were joined by 50 sponsors and members of Southern with Michael Long, Price, Stolz and Harwood headlining the event.
The next stop on the SParms PGA Legends Tour is Settlers Run Legends Pro-Am on Tuesday 28 February.
Queensland pair Brad Burns and Chris Taylor won ‘The Jack Harris & Brian Twite’ Victorian PGA Seniors Foursomes Championship at The National Golf Club – Long Island Course on Sunday courtesy of a superb round of 69.
Burns and Taylor’s three-under par effort was three shots better than the next best placed pairing of Victorians Tim Elliott and Andy Rogers who were playing on their home course.
Starting from the 10th tee, the Queenslanders made two early bogeys to be behind the eight-ball early but they quickly clicked into gear with five birdies coming home to grab the title.
“It’s great to get together on a fantastic golf course and have a really enjoyable day,” Burns said.
Burns is a four-time winner of the SParms PGA Legends Tour Order of Merit and currently sits third in this season’s standings, while Taylor has been a regular winner on the SParms PGA Legends Tour and is based out of Hervey Bay.
The event is named in honour of legendary Victorian professionals Jack Harris and Brian Twite. The Victorian PGA Championship trophy is named the ‘Jack Harris Cup’ as he won the tournament six times and he won 90 professional events on the Australian circuit. Twite was one of the most revered teaching professionals in the country after being poached from Sunningdale, England to be the head professional at Metropolitan Golf Club in Melbourne in 1955.
It was to herald the return of a professional prize purse yet Toby Walker kept the Tasmanian Open in the hands of the amateurs at Launceston Golf Club.
The 54-hole tournament on the adidas PGA Pro-Am Series offered prize money of $35,000 for the first time since 1992 but Walker showed the pros how it is done with a four-stroke win.
A member at Heidelberg Golf Club in Melbourne with aspirations of attending ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia Qualifying School in the middle of the year, Walker made seven birdies in his final round of four-under 68, clinching the title with birdies at 15 and 17 and a total score of 12-under par.
“I played pretty solid from the start,” said Walker.
“It was nerve-wracking when the boys made birdies early but I holed a lot of good putts coming down the stretch and got a couple of nice drives away for those last couple of finishing holes.”
It was a welcome return to form for Walker and a positive step towards a career in professional golf, whether through Q School or via the PGA’s Membership Pathway Program.
“It’s been a struggle towards the end of last year but found something this year,” he added.
“It’s been solid but nothing special so it’s good to finally bring it all together here this week.”
Queenslander William Bruyeres made the trip to Tasmania worth his while with a runner-up finish, banking the largest of the professional cheques with a final round of four-under 68.
He finished one clear of Victorian Ben Ford (67) with Cameron Kelly’s three straight 70s enough to earn fourth ahead of a four-way tie for fifth.
Jazy Roberts edged Jorjah Bailey in a playoff to claim the Women’s Tasmanian Open while Wynnum’s Keith Dobie took out the Tasmanian Inclusive Championship.
Click here for final scores and prize money.
Victorian amateur Toby Walker heads into the final round of the Tasmanian Open at Launceston Golf Club with a two-shot advantage after a five-under par round of 67 on Friday.
Walker began the day with a share of the lead, and he now sits at eight-under par with a first victory in a World Amateur Golf Ranking event since 2018 in his sights.
The 23-year-old bookended his round with a pair of birdies, and he made four birdies in the closing six holes to break clear of his rivals.
Walker was a member of the victorious Victorian team at last year’s Australian Interstate Teams Matches and he also has an impressive history at this event having come runner-up in the 2022 edition.
The tournament is now a 54-hole Pro-Am with prize money up for grabs for the first since the early 1990s and Launceston’s resident PGA professional Daniel Smith was the only player to match Walker’s second round 67.
Smith, who is six-under for the event, admitted to feeling the weight of expectation to perform in the lead up to the event on his home course, but he showed no signs of battling with the pressure in a round that included a hole-in-one at the par 3 fourth hole and a back nine 31.
His charge home included making four straight birdies to close out his round and jump into a share of second alongside fellow Tasmanian professional Simon Hawkes.
The 2016 champion produced a rollercoaster second round 68 that included eight birdies.
Hawkes reached the turn in 36 as his four birdies were offset by two bogeys and double bogey, but he steadied in the second half of his round with a back nine 32.
Prior to the event, Hawkes discussed the event being a “weird springboard” for many players as the illustrious honour roll of past champions have often gone onto win prominent events in the years following their Tasmanian Open triumph.
If he gets his hands on the trophy tomorrow, he will be hoping that it acts as a launching pad to a drought breaking win on the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia – his last triumph came at the 2018 Vic Open.
Tasmanian amateur Jack Tregaskisjago, Victorian professional Cameron Kelly and Queensland professional William Bruyeres are tied for fourth at four-under par.
Victorian Jazy Roberts leads the women’s event after shooting a one-under par second round of 71.Roberts is two-over par and she leads by three shots from Tasmania’s Jorjah Bailey and Hallie Meaburn, and New South Wales’ Charlotte Perkins.
Victory on Saturday would clinch a unique treble for the 17-year-old after she won both the Tasmanian Junior Masters and the Tasmanian Junior Amateur in January, and her love affair with the Apple Isle also includes a runner-up finish in last year’s edition of this tournament.
Next month the Belvoir Park member heads to Singapore to represent Australia at the Women’s Amateur Asia-Pacific for the first time.
The Tasmanian Inclusive Championship is being played in conjunction with the Tasmanian Open and Keith Dobie from Wynnum Golf Club in Queensland is leading the 54-hole Stableford event for golfers with a physical, sensory or intellectual disability with 59 points after two rounds.
Click here for scores.
Victorian Ben Eccles has a share of the Tasmanian Open first-round lead at three-under par alongside Toby Walker, William Bruyeres at Tasmanian amateur Greg Longmore at Launceston Golf Club.
With $35,000 up for grabs, the 2023 championship is the first time that professionals have featured at the Tasmanian Open in more than 30 years.
Eccles also made a late charge to the top of the leaderboard with a four-hole stretch where he went birdie-par-eagle-birdie from holes 15 to 18.
That fast finish turned the 2015 NSW Open champion’s day around after he lost his way with a double bogey and two bogeys either side of the turn.
Longmore was tipped by many of his counterparts to be a formidable force on his home course in the 54-hole adidas PGA Pro-Am Series event and he proved why with a birdie at the par-5 15th, a chip-in eagle at the par-4 16th and another eagle at the short par-5 17th to walk into the clubhouse with a round of 69.
More remarkable than Longmore’s late surge on Thursday is the fact he is on the golf course and playing to such a high standard two years after being critically injured in a fire at the distillery where we was working.
The former Tasmanian state team captain suffered burns to 40 per cent of his body, and he was given only a 15 per cent chance of surviving, but incredibly he was back on course at Launceston little more than four months after the accident. He marked his comeback with a 66 and he shared his story with Golf Australia at the time.
Amateur Walker was steady throughout his opening effort with only one dropped shot for the day.
The 23-year-old, who was a member of the victorious Victorian team at last year’s Australian Interstate Teams Matches, made three birdies in the opening six holes and was solid from then on.
Professional Bruyeres – who finished top 20 at the Queensland PGA Championship in January 2022 – made five birdies in his round and reached the turn in 33.
There are six men sitting a shot off the lead with amateurs Andrew Spitty and Issac Batty, Tasmanian professional Simon Hawkes, and Victorian professionals Cameron Kelly, Ben Paine and Ben Ford all at two-under par.
In the women’s event, Tasmanian representative Hallie Meaburn is joined at the top of the leaderboard by New South Wales’ Isabelle Mansfield.
The pair produced one-over par rounds of 73 but they came in varying fashion with Meaburn making birdies at the first two holes, while Mansfield birdied two of the three closing holes to grab a share of the lead.
Royal Hobart member Meaburn comes from Tasmanian golfing royalty as she is the granddaughter of amateur legend Lindy Goggin and the niece of former world top-50 player Mathew Goggin.
He has been starved of competitive play for three years but it was a winning return for Scott Priest at the Devonport Country Club Pro-Am on Tuesday.
A PGA Professional at Tasmania Golf Club, Priest started his round with bogeys at two of his opening three holes but an adjustment to his game-plan yielded instant results.
He posted seven birdies in his closing 14 holes to post five-under 65, good enough for a two-stroke win over Victorian pair Ben Eccles (67) and Cameron Kelly (67).
An ideal lead-in to the 54-hole Tasmanian Open that begins at Launceston Golf Club on Thursday, the first adidas PGA Pro-Am Series event in Tasmania in three years was a welcome one for local professionals.
A former winner of the Tasmanian PGA Championship, Priest’s only competitive outlet has been the weekly ‘Beat the Pro’ event on a Thursday afternoon at his home club.
After a difficult period on the course, Priest found form at just the right time.
“I’ve just come off a real bad patch,” Priest admitted.
“We play ‘Beat The Pro’ once a week so I try to keep up with it but having these pro-ams back is fantastic.
“I was lucky enough to play myself into form just last week at ‘Beat The Pro’ and ended up doing the same thing here.”
Starting from the eighth tee, Priest dropped shots at eight and then 10, necessitating a change in thinking to turn his fortunes around.
“I actually started really slowly,” Priest added.
“I missed a couple on the short side so I was a couple over early but then changed my game-plan, went for the middle of the green… even the front of the green.
“I was lucky enough then to hole a few putts.”
The challenge for Priest now is to transfer that form into the Tasmanian Open which boasts a prestigious honour roll of past champions.
“I’m keen to play a three-day event,” Priest said.
“I haven’t played one of those for a long, long time so really looking forward to it.”
Click here for final scores and prize money.
Tasmanian Simon Hawkes hopes the reimagined Tasmanian Open will herald an exciting new era for professional golf in the state when it tees off at Launceston Golf Club on Thursday.
This year marks 110 years since the Tasmanian Open was first played and its list of winners – both male and female, amateur and professional – rivals that of any other state open throughout the country.
Two-time major winner David Graham, Bob Shearer, Frank Phillips, Stewart Ginn and Brett Ogle are all former male professional champions while the likes of Mathew Goggin (1994), Geoff Ogilvy (1998), Brendan Jones (1999), Nick Flanagan (2003), Jarryd Felton (2014) and Hayden Hopewell (2021) have won as amateurs.
Former champions of the Women’s Tasmanian Open include two-time major winner Minjee Lee, Nikki Campbell, Lindy Goggin and Tammy Hall.
Hawkes is the only professional winner since 1992, even though the 2016 tournament was not played as a professional event.
He won a Garmin watch that he gave to his caddie for winning his state open seven years ago and wants to help drive a resurgence of professional golf in Tasmania as it makes its return to the adidas PGA Pro-Am Series.
Boasting some of the most spectacular golf courses on the planet, Hawkes believes the next step is to host high-quality professional tournaments that will help to inspire the development of elite amateurs in the state.
“It’s a big first step in hopefully bringing more professional tournament golf into the state of Tasmania,” Hawkes said.
“In parallel with all the wonderful courses we now have down here, showcasing more high performance and professional golf down in Tasmania provides a benefit for people of Tasmania to look at golf as a sport.
“If you have all these fantastic courses an hour from where you live and you are seeing these high-profile athletes, that’s the thing that kids see.
“I’d say that was the one thing I was robbed of as a kid. Mat (Goggin) would come back once a year when he wasn’t playing the PGA TOUR and do a clinic but we weren’t consistently around any tour players.
“With people getting more access to high-end tournament golf in the state of Tasmania, it’s a good opportunity for younger people to see where the benchmark is and hopefully grow high development here in the state.
“The TPS events (on the Webex Players Series) are starting to get a lot of traction so I don’t see why, with the right amount of work put in, that Tasmania can’t put itself back on the main tour in the years to come.”
The $35,000 prize purse for the 54-hole event is the first time that prize money has been on offer since Darren Cole won in 1992.
As has been the case for the past decade, men and women will play concurrent tournaments on the same course seeking to add their names to a championship that has catapulted the careers of many players.
“If you look back through the past champions list, it’s a pretty strong list,” Hawkes added.
“Within two or three years of winning the Tasmanian Open, a lot of guys go on to win major tournaments.
“It’s a weird springboard for a lot of guys.
“It’s on the resume of a lot of guys who have gone on to have a lot of success in this country.”
And while much of the attention in recent years has been focused on new courses such as Barnbougle Dunes, Cape Wickham, Ocean Dunes and the current build at Seven Mile Beach, Hawkes is excited to return to Launceston where he has enjoyed success in the past.
“Launceston Golf Club has always been a very high quality members course up in the north,” said the Hobart-based Hawkes.
“In 2019 I won the Super 6 match play at Launceston that was part of the pro-am circuit but growing up I didn’t play it as much as some of the other courses such as Riverside and Mowbray that hosted regional tournaments.
“I haven’t been to the course yet but from what I hear they’ve added some irrigation so I imagine the course condition is going to be pretty awesome for the week.”
Kris Mueck will take winning form into next week’s TPS Hunter Valley event after earning a share of victory at the Kwill Fabrications Cardinia Beaconhills Pro-Am south-east of Melbourne.
Oppressive heat and a lightning storm in the afternoon caused some disruption to play as Mueck, Euan Walters and Levi Burns all finished level with rounds of four-under 67.
Added to the field to contest TPS Hunter Valley at Cypress Lakes Resort starting Thursday, Mueck converted good form in the Thursday comp at Heathcote Golf Club into a first adidas PGA Pro-Am Series win in almost two years.
“I had a good round in my club comp yesterday and I built a little bit of confidence from that,” said Mueck.
“But you never know what golf offers up so I was trying to stay positive for the start of the round and see how we go from there.
“I got into the TPS next week so it’s good to be trending for that.
“I played Cypress Lakes last year so looking forward to getting back up there and having a crack.”
The PGA Professional at Portsea Golf Club, Burns did the majority of his best work early in the round.
A birdie at three was followed by an eagle at four and then another birdie at six to reach four-under approaching the turn.
He briefly got to five-under with a birdie at 14 but handed it back with a dropped shot at the next, parring his way in to claim a share of top spot.
Unlike Mueck, Burns is now due to get back to his day job and provide lessons for the membership at Portsea.
“Not much competitive stuff for me,” Burns said of his immediate playing schedule. “Maybe Heidelberg pro-am and Keysborough pro-am is about all I’ve got planned at the moment.”
A member of the PGA TOUR in 2005, Walters on the other hand is scheduling tournaments across two tours.
The 52-year-old is already a winner on the SParms PGA Legends Tour and intends to ramp up his appearances amongst the over-50s over the course of the year.
“It’s going to be busy this year. I’m going to play most of the Legends Tour events so really looking forward to competing and getting back into it,” said Walters, the 2004 Jacob’s Creek Open champion.
“I’m practising a bit and still trying to get better, even at my old age. I think I am, but maybe I’m being delusional.”
The adidas PGA Pro-Am Series now moves to Devonport Country Club for the Devonport Country Club Pro-Am on Tuesday.
Sixth time proved the charm for Cardinia Beaconhills Professional Dylan Higgins who shared victory with Ben Bunny at the 2023 Air Adventure King Island Pro-Am.
Played across the spectacular Cape Wickham and Ocean Dunes courses over two days, the 27 professionals and 81 amateurs made it the largest golf event ever staged on King Island.
As is to be expected in such a setting conditions made scoring challenging, Higgins and Bunny finished locked together on 70 Stableford points from their two rounds.
Two points off the lead at the start of the second round at Ocean Dunes on Tuesday, Higgins began with back-to-back birdies to play his way into the mix.
A double bogey on five, a topped tee shot on 11 and a dreaded shank on 12 only added to the difficulty yet Higgins rebounded with birdies at 13, 16 and 17 for 37 points and the clubhouse lead.
After posting 31 points on Monday and making the turn in two-over courtesy of a birdie at nine, Bunny was an unlikely challenger.
He banked pars at 10 and 11 and then hit driver, driver to three feet at the par-5 12th for a timely eagle.
He backed that up by putting in for birdie from just off the green at 13 and completed a back nine of five-under and 23 points with birdies at 16 and 18, the last a mere tap-in from 30 centimetres.
With shanks having plagued his recent rounds, Higgins came into the event expecting little but used his hosel-rocket at 12 to kick-start his charge to the clubhouse.
“I got a little hot under the collar when I hit that clean hosel on 12,” admitted Higgins, pictured.
“I just told myself that I was probably still in it. It’s not an easy day, it’s a hard golf course and managed to give some really good shots coming in.
“I’d had a pretty good start to the year but the last 10-12 rounds I’ve thought I’ve played OK and hit clean hosels in every single event. The practice round was no exception.
“Yesterday I managed to keep a fairly clean card at Cape Wickham.
“My expectations coming in were minimal but if you chip it around here you can make a score and I was lucky enough to do that.”
A Teaching Professional at both Ranfurlie Golf Club and Woodlands Golf Club in Melbourne, Bunny, too, came in with low expectations.
A prolific winner of pro-ams in the past, Bunny has played little tournament golf the past five years but revelled in his second visit to King Island.
“This is my second trip with the same group and we love it,” said Bunny.
“It’s such a unique experience. Unlimited golf at the courses so we ended up playing 36 holes each day.
“The views are just spectacular, the courses are great, the accommodation’s good, the food’s amazing. It’s just a great experience.
“Playing the last hole I did know where I stood; guys out there were telling us. I didn’t hit a very good tee shot but it was in my favour up the right side.
“I managed to hit a good approach shot to about 30 centimetres from the pin for an easy tap-in birdie.”
Playing in the event for a sixth time with members from The National and Cardinia Beaconhills, Higgins also praised the format and experience.
“I’ve been here six times now. It’s great networking – we bring a group of members each year,” he added.
“The courses are great, the food’s great and everyone looks after us. It’s a real joy to be here.”
Former champion Ashley Hall finished outright third with 69 points followed by a three-way tie for fourth between Matt Jager, Scott Laycock and Peter Martin.
Click here for final scores.
