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Bree Arthur’s earliest memories of playing golf are of clinics with up to 30 like-minded kids, nine-hole competitions and skills challenges that may or may not have included flop shots over the hedge adjacent to the putting green of her home club.
“We were just there to have fun,” Arthur recalls.
It is that type of environment that Arthur is helping to foster in her new role at Royal Canberra Golf Club in the nation’s capital.
A former tour player in Europe, Arthur began the PGA of Australia Bridging Course in early 2018, starting her life as a coach first at St Michael’s Golf Club in Sydney before spending three years at Royal Sydney Golf Club.
She was appointed as Royal Canberra’s Golf Operations Manager in February this year and has been quick to contribute to the club’s beginner clinics and in April hosted a Women’s Golf Network event.
Given the surge of interest in golf over the past 18 months, Arthur believes establishing connections within the club is critical in turning beginners into regular golfers.
How do you try and make sure beginners have a positive first experience with golf?
I think it’s important to have an inclusive mindset, have the attitude that this is a sport for everyone whether you’re male or female, young or old. A key initially is to make the game as easy as possible so they enjoy it because it can be a difficult game to learn. Make them feel included and that this can be a very fun game as well as being competitive and challenging.
How effective are group clinics in making the game fun for beginners?
A group environment is definitely a popular way for women who are new to the game. By participating in a group clinic they have the chance to do it with friends or meet new people and it’s far less intimidating than walking into a club by yourself for the first time. It’s like joining a new gym. You feel a bit intimidated and you are less likely to want to go so these group sessions provide a social outlet as well as learning the fundamentals of the game. That makes people feel more welcome and more inclined to keep coming back and hopefully one day become members.
How does your coaching method change when working with a group as opposed to one-on-one lessons?
Keep it simple and don’t get too technical. If you get too technical you lose them straight away. I find relating golf to other sports is really effective. Most new golfers have played some type of sport previously so you can relate the skills in golf to other sports they have played. Tennis, baseball, softball, they all have similar rotational movements that can form a good base for learning golf-specific skills and positions in the golf swing.
What does Royal Canberra include in its introductory program to welcome new golfers?
For our women’s program some of the women’s committee come along to meet those who are participating and make them feel welcome. If they do then become members they’ve got some friendly faces already within the club who they can perhaps have a game with. Someone they feel comfortable talking to and asking any questions they may have. Also after each clinic we provide drinks and canapes in the clubhouse so the coaches and participants can mingle and that’s also really important in making that first experience a really positive one.
The PGA’s Women in Golf Network provides opportunities for beginners and advanced golfers to learn more about the game in a fun group clinic environment. Conducted by qualified PGA Professionals, the Women in Golf Network is aimed at inspiring more women to play golf. To learn more, head to pga.org.au/play/
The great coaches know a good swing when they see one.
They also know to leave well enough alone rather than impart advice that may serve to confuse their player rather than make them better.
Throughout all his work with the likes of Steve Elkington, Michael Campbell and Jan Stephenson that would enable them to become Major champions, Alex Mercer delivered a simple philosophy to the golf swing and trusted the player to deliver.
It took just one meeting with Sydney teenager Austin Bautista for Mercer to deliver a pearl of wisdom that the now 24-year-old continues to use to forge his way on the European Tour.
After spending two years working around the globe with humanitarian aid organisations, Bautista returned to golf at the start of 2020 and quickly began to re-establish the credentials that saw him selected in the NSW State team alongside Dylan Perry and Blake Windred and take out the 2016 NSW Amateur.
After recording a handful of wins on mini tours in the US, Bautista was given the opportunity to play in the South African Open on the European Tour last December, carrying with him the golden nugget of advice shared by Mercer years earlier.
“I saw Alex Mercer once and he gave me probably the greatest golf lesson I ever received,” Bautista recalled.
“He changed my grip a little bit and said, ‘You’ve got the mechanics to play well, all you need to do is play more.’”
A two-year stint without touching a club the year after turning professional was not exactly what Mercer had in mind but Bautista believes the self-belief instilled in him by Mercer, Sydney-based PGA Professional Shane Puckett and his father has been key in taking his game to a higher level.
“I had another coach who I saw three or four times by the name of Shane Puckett and he was very similar,” Bautista added.
“He said, ‘I love the way you’re playing, I love the way you’re swinging, just keep doing the same thing and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it.’
“Those were the type of guys that I really liked and my Dad is that way as well. Always telling me that I’ve got everything I need to make it.
“I’ve never had someone that I was going to see for advice tell me that I need to change anything drastically and that’s helped me to have the self-belief that you need to be successful.”
Based at Bonnie Doon Golf Club at the time, Puckett recognised the talent and rare confidence within the diminutive teenager so when Bautista approached him in 2015 for assistance suggested only minor adjustments.
“His technique was already exceptional. When you looked at the basic fundamentals of his swing they were all really, really good,” Puckett explained.
“The main things we worked on were a couple of little things with his set-up, with his leg action – making sure he had a solid base – but for him it was knowing that he could hit the shots that he needed to hit.”
The two-year hiatus from the game has allowed Bautista to return to professional golf with greater perspective. Volunteering in Third World countries and war-torn Israel makes any bogey easier to take yet Bautista maintains the greatest of ambition.
Tied for seventh at the Austrian Open in April, Bautista wants to be a PGA TOUR winner and top-10 player in the world within the next two years. For a player with only conditional status on the Forme Tour in Canada this year they are ambitious targets but Puckett isn’t prepared to bet against it.
“I’ve never met anyone like him. When he talks it’s hard not to believe him because he just has that conviction about what he does,” added Puckett, who today splits his time between coaching at The Ridge in Sydney’s south with his role as a Sales and Support Manager with Golf Genius Software.
“The way he goes about what he does, you can’t teach that. And the more you watch him the more you realise you just have to get out of his way.
“That’s your focus when you’re helping him because he just needs to reaffirm what he believes in. That’s all he needs.
“There was just no doubt in my mind that if he kept playing he was going to make it.
“He can get to where he wants to get to because he has that belief and attitude.
“I’ve never seen a golfer like him mentally.”
Speak to your local PGA Professional to help refine your game or visit click on the ‘Find a PGA Pro’ tab at pga.org.au.
TJ King has earned his first trip to the PGA Professionals Championship National Final and a ticket to Hamilton Island after claiming victory at the PGA Professionals Championship of North Queensland.
King fired a bogey-free round of 5-under 66 to take a two-stroke win over Patrick Joseph and Peter Martin at Mackay Golf Club.
After receiving 52 millimeters of rain prior to the event, the layout provided an additional challenge for the seven PGA Professionals competing for the two qualifying places on offer.
“The course played a bit longer today than it did for the Pro-Am on Friday because of the damp conditions,” said King.
“There wasn’t any run out there today so I knew with my length that I had to take advantage of that.”
King is excited to travel to Hamilton Island this September where 50 PGA Professionals from around the country will compete for the title of PGA Professionals Champion for 2021.
“I have never played at Hamilton Island but I have heard a lot of great things about the course,” said King.
“I hit the ball pretty high so I will need to practice hitting it low for the next few weeks as I believe it gets pretty windy over there.”
Patrick Joseph will join King in September after beating Peter Martin in a playoff for the final qualifying place.
“It’s great to be going back to Hamilton Island,” said Joseph. “The finals are a great event and I really enjoy the Hamilton Island layout.”
To view the final leaderboard from the PGA Professionals Championship of North Queensland, visit pga.org.au.
As he reflects on 70 years as a Member of the PGA of Australia this year, Brian Huxtable reveals the twist of fate that led him to golf and the extraordinary people he has met along the way. With Tony Webeck
My first exposure to golf was as a caddie at Riversdale Golf Club when I was 10. It was during the War; in 1944 I started to caddie at Riversdale. I knew one other fella who used to go there sometimes and he said there was a bit of money in it. Nobody had any money so I went… and never stopped. I’d work Saturday afternoons and Sunday and earning nearly half of what Dad was.
I’d never seen a course anywhere else so I didn’t realise Riversdale was considered a hilly golf course. That was the only one I knew! It was 18 holes, I knew that. I knew you had to hit it up the right-hand side of 17; you couldn’t hit left.
When I was 12 I caddied for a guy regularly on Saturday afternoons and he won the Club Championship after I coached him around having never played golf. He told George Naismith that if I ever wanted to use his clubs over Christmas I could borrow them. So I started playing the odd nine holes using mens clubs at 12 years of age.
I went from no golf at 13 to comfortably breaking 80 at 15. All of us kids learnt by caddying. I’d never hit a golf shot and here I am clubbing the bloke who won the club championships. On the last hole he wanted to hit a certain club and I said, ‘No way!’ I gave him his 7-iron and said, ‘This is the club.’ I’d never played a game of golf in my life!
There were only two high schools in those days and because I lived in Mt Waverley, Dandenong High was impossible to get to so I’d catch the train into town to go to school. But they wouldn’t take me because I was under age so I had to go back and do Year 8 again. In March or April that year George offered me a job in the shop so I raced home on the bike and told Mum and Dad, ‘I’ve got a job!’ I was only 13 at that time and became probably the first assistant pro that had never played 18 holes. By the time I was 17 I was good enough to be in the PGA.
The biggest job I had when I started at 13 was buffing the clubs. In those days every set of clubs had to be buffed on a buffer after the play. Winter time you’d first have to wash the mud off and then buff them, and there were 250 sets in the shop. And I was it.
We would make clubs up. We’d start off with heads, shafts and leather grips, nothing else. George was a master clubmaker and I got the job of filing the head into shape. It was a real art. Pros in those days were very important to golf clubs because there weren’t any golf sports stores; the only place you could get a golf club in the first five years I was at Riversdale would have been through a pro shop.
George was from the wooden-shaft days and he could make a club feel real good. He was absolutely flat strap making up wooden-shafted clubs because you had to know where to shape the shaft itself. You had to make it so that it could move a bit so it was a real art. They were artists.
I had a stroke of luck. George played in Sydney and brought home another trainee by the name of Peter Thomson. I improved more by watching Peter than anything anybody told me.
I played in assistant pro tournaments and when I turned 14 I won my first money up at Heidelberg. We were handicapped at the start and I started off on 20-something and didn’t do very well. The second tournament my boss wrote that I had improved and couldn’t have the same handicap, which didn’t suit me at all. I then went to Heidelberg and was off 17 or something and we played nine holes in the morning and 18 in the afternoon. I shot par for the first nine and walked in and said, ‘Half of 17,’ and the bloke said, ‘You’re not getting that handicap son.’ And he dropped me back to about five. I didn’t even win the damn thing!
I was assistant pro at Riversdale until I was 20 and then went to Green Acres and stayed there for four years. Then I went to be the club pro at Yarrawonga, which was the first bush club up that way with grass greens. I had three years there and it was the right age for me to take some responsibility and do a bit of development.
I won quite a few pro-ams over the years and came second at the Vic PGA in 1966 at Huntingdale. It makes you think how close we were to being good golfers. Geoff Flanagan was the first person that ever broke 290 around Huntingdale over four rounds; my score in coming second would have won the first three Australian Masters tournaments.
Thommo came home to Melbourne to have a rest one year in the middle of the British season. They talked him into playing at Woodlands on Queen’s Birthday and he knocked me off there. I beat all the locals but Thommo was just a bit better.
After Yarrawonga I spent three years at Medway Golf Club and I was playing pretty well at that stage, playing in all the major events. I played in the same tournament that Jack Nicklaus played his first tournament in Australia at The Australian Golf Club. Alan Heil and I knew Gary Player who brought him out so we asked if we could walk around with him. We walked around for Nicklaus’s first nine in Australia. I realised then that I was never going to be a Jack Nicklaus. We’d never seen the ball go so far.
There was a hole at The Australian along the freeway – maybe the sixth or seventh – and it was two woods and a wedge for most players. Somebody might get up there on a helping day. Nicklaus had never used a small before and he hit a drive down to where God would have thought he was cheating. He hit a 3-iron that landed on the back of the green and bounded 40 yards over the back. He hit a 6-iron and cleared the green with that as well. So here’s a hole of some 575 yards and he’s cleared the green with a drive and a six.
Following Medway I was at the public course at Waverley for 16 or 17 years but the hours became too much and I got the job at Kingston Heath. My wife at the time wanted to go back to the Murray so I went up to Barham for quite a few years. Then my son became a pro and he was in Darwin and wanted some help with the teaching in the area. I couldn’t handle the heat so I got a job as the pro at Eden on the South Coast and spent about eight years there.
Golf was at its absolute peak during my time at Waverley. We had golfers every day and I was giving up to 100 lessons a week. All the pros were the same at the public courses, we were starting golfers off all the time. I can still walk down the street and someone will yell out, ‘Hey Huxtable! I started golf at Waverley with you.’ If a person started and then got going you would recommend they go and enter a private club and join up. We were the feeder grounds for the other clubs in the area.
You had a process for beginners and they had to learn not to sway. Most people used to go sideways and try and lift the ball; you had to teach them to stay in between their feet and rotate. I think I was one of the first people to ever use that word in relation to the golf swing. I got sick of the word ‘pivot’. When I’m teaching now I still use the word ‘rotate’. It’s the best way to get people going.
I shot 69 around Southern one day and there was an 80mph wind blowing. Johnny Kennedy was the bloke I played with and he said it was the best round of golf he’d ever seen. I won it by about eight shots and they reckon I’d cheated. It was just one of those days when everything fell into place.
The average person who lasts at golf is usually a pretty nice person. I’ve got thousands of friends all through golf. We’ve got that mateship because it was a smaller pro game back then and the PGA pros were the top of the tree. There were very few tour players. If I was 22, 23 I could have been tempted to go away and have a go of being a tour player but I enjoyed the club life, the actual life I was leading in a pro shop.
Image: Yarrawonga Mulwala Golf Club Resort
Less than 12 months after suffering a serious head injury that threatened his future in the game Matthew Guyatt has secured his place at the PGA Professionals Championship National Final at Hamilton Island in September with a course record round at Victoria Park in Brisbane.
In the last PGA Professionals Championship of South-East Queensland that will be contested at Victoria Park before its closure on June 30, Guyatt tied the course record of 10-under 55 with a bogey-free round featuring 10 birdies.
A two-time PGA of Australian Trainee of the Year, Guyatt is currently the Assistant Professional at Nudgee Golf Club in Brisbane’s northern suburbs but knows he is lucky to be playing golf at all.
Not long after being appointed at Nudgee, Guyatt suffered two large gashes to the top of his head in a freak accident while playing basketball at home with his son Jack.
It took close to four hours for doctors to stitch his head back together and a full recovery took weeks but Guyatt knows the damage could have been far greater, grateful to be out competing and playing the game he loves.
“I am lucky to be here at all let along walking and therefore to be back playing competitive golf is a blessing,” said Guyatt.
A mad supporter of all Brisbane sporting teams, Guyatt is now one of 12 Queensland players who will represent their state at Hamilton Island in September.
“I have heard so much about the tournament and am looking forward to the chance to represent Queensland alongside my fellow PGA Professionals in what will be my first time being eligible to play the event,” he added.
For winning, Guyatt receives return flights to Hamilton Island for the PGA Professionals Championship National Final and also an exemption to play in the Queensland PGA Championship.
Also winning exemptions into the Queensland PGA Championship and qualifying for Hamilton Island are Redland Bay Golf Club’s Paul Hayden and Hervey Bay Golf Club’s Chris Taylor, who both recorded 6-under par rounds of 59. As the leading individual over the age of 50, Taylor also wins an exemption to play in the Australian Senior PGA Championship later in 2021.
The 12 players from the PGA Professionals Championship of South East Queensland to have qualified for the National Final are: Matthew Guyatt, Paul Hayden, Christopher Taylor, Murray Lott, Brenton Parrish, David Merriman, Matthew Rogers, Jacob Freeman, Garrett Skinner, Christopher McCourt, Lachlan Ritson and Craig Goodall.
View the final PGA Professionals Championship of South East QLD leaderboard at pga.org.au.
Lucas Herbert’s coach Dominic Azzopardi shares his insight into how the team are preparing Herbert’s body and mind to put in a strong showing at this week’s US PGA Championship at Kiawah Island Resort.
Lucas has decided to base himself in Orlando, Florida this year and I went over midway through February and spent a month with him in the US. I was there for the WGC-Workday Championship that they played in Florida. Going into that event Lucas said that he’d never swung it so good, never hit it so good but he did a really, really poor job on that golf course of committing to hitting shots. It was a typical ‘big boy’ golf course; water down the left, bunkers, trees, lost ball right and you’ve just got to man up and hit a shot. He just wasn’t doing a good enough job of that.
The work he did on the range prior to the round was awesome, especially the first two rounds. But it’s different when you’re hitting a 6-iron to a 200-yard marker down the range with no water and no consequence. Second hole he had a 200-yard 6-iron with water right of the green and all of a sudden it’s going left into the trap short sided and he makes bogey or double. That’s where it’s having the courage to see the shot and committing to it wholeheartedly.
Lucas is coming to terms with the fact that the events that he is playing in America are around big boy golf courses and this week is going to be the same. He’s just got to do a better job of seeing a shot and committing to a shot wholeheartedly.
He’s done a good job the past six months working a lot on the mental side of the game with Jamie Glazier. Jamie was there that week of the WGC and they have done some really good work since then on that side of his game. That’s been a priority since that WGC.
An issue we are still dealing with is the fact that his body has been giving him a fair bit of trouble this year. It’s nothing major or specific but because he is such a feel player if his body is slightly different from day to day or week to week, he really struggles.
Simone Tozer has travelled with Lucas the past three years as his movement coach but Simi came back last year and did hotel quarantine, got engaged and the full-time travel was becoming too much, which is fair enough. The past six months he’s had so many different people treating him and his body has struggled with that.
We knew that a routine of hands-on treatment worked best for him but we’d gotten away from that a bit. He Monday qualified at Wells Fargo, shot 5-under, said his body felt good and then by Wednesday said his hips were in a different place, his right shoulder was different and he was struggling to swing it the way he wanted from day to day. If that’s the case, it’s difficult for him to make a score with the way he goes about it.
He’s got Luke Mackey from Golf Australia with him for the next two weeks doing hands-on treatment, very similar to what he’s had in the past, which is great. His body should be in good position and hopefully we won’t have issues there. We don’t like to have an excuse of that ever but the reality is that sometimes if your body’s not right, you can’t be doing what we want to be doing. That was certainly the case at Wells Fargo.
He can have a feel in his golf swing that lasts for three or four weeks and he takes that to the golf course each day. Every day on the range he’s creating that feel again and that feel is creating a ball flight. When his body’s changing from day to day, he’s trying to find a new feel every day, and that’s really hard. That’s when he’s not playing well.
Lucas puts so much emphasis into leaving no stone unturned when it comes to a Major and he drove three hours up to Kiawah last week to check it out. He wanted to have a look at the course, have a look at the surrounds, what he needs to work on in his game leading up to it so that when he arrived he knew exactly what to expect.
The voice message that he sent to the group after that trip was, ‘This place is awesome, love it, the surrounds are great, you’ve got to man up and hit shots off the tee but I feel like I can do that.’ It’s going to be really influenced by the wind and the weather but he liked it which is always a good thing to hear.
We’ve looked at the stats report that Tom Boys has produced for us. We know there are a lot of 175-225-yard approach shots so Lucas has been doing a lot of work on that side of the game. He knows the surrounds are tight and firm so he can practice that type of shot. That’s what Tiger did for years and Lucas finds this stuff out. What do the best in the world do to prepare? That’s what I should be looking to do if that’s going to work for me.
A PGA of Australia Member since 1996, Dominic Azzopardi runs the Performance Coaching Program at Peregian Golf on the Sunshine Coast. He is also available for online coaching via the Skillest app with various lesson subscriptions available.
Denis McDade, long-time coach of world No.37 Marc Leishman, reveals how an adjustment to his pre-shot routine turned the Victorian around and why he is excited to return to Kiawah Island for this week’s US PGA Championship.
Marc really struggled coming out of lockdown so I went over to the US and spent five weeks with him late last year to try and get to the bottom of what wasn’t working. Not being able to watch him practice and, more importantly, compete in tournaments live really restricts what a coach can pick up on but after a couple of days at the ZOZO Championship I could see something wasn’t quite right with his pre-shot routine.
In some ways I was intrigued as to why he wasn’t playing well because there was nothing in his swing mechanics that suggested we had a lot of work to do. In the first round it was obvious to me that all of his normal processes just weren’t there; he was doing some stuff around his routine and his approach to playing that I hadn’t seen him do before. Our task was to migrate back from what he was doing to what he does when he plays well. It sounds simple but it took a couple of weeks to get that happening.
Marc plays his best golf when he visualises a shot and then his routine is shaped around the shot he sees and the shot he wants to play. It’s not a rigid pre-shot routine that he repeats before every shot, his pre-shot routine is determined by the shot he has visualised hitting. He does work on improving and maintaining mechanics, but he leaves it on the range. If he ever starts thinking about things on the golf course, that’s when he starts to struggle. He was thinking far too much about what he was doing and wasn’t connected enough with the shots that he was playing.
The week before The Masters last November we played five days in a row doing the same thing over and over again. The last round we played before going to Augusta he shot a bogey-free 65 around his home course of Bayville in Virginia Beach. I thought if he continued with that process at Augusta National he would play well, and he did. Since then it’s just been making sure that he’s stayed in that mode.
The other thing that was affecting Marc was the lack of crowds at tournaments. It was amazing how quiet it was at the tournaments I attended and even the players were tempered in their reactions to good shots. These guys live to perform when the crowds are there, the energy is up and you’re in one of the leading groups but Marc also draws energy from the crowds when he’s not playing so well because there is always someone encouraging you, regardless of how you’re playing. He really missed that and I don’t think it’s any coincidence that as the crowds have returned he has looked happier out on course and his body language has been a lot better, along with his results.
I’m sure he’d be carrying some expectation of performing well this week at a golf course that he’s performed well around before. (Leishman was T27 at the 2012 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island.) I’m sure he’d be quietly confident.
These weeks of a Major can be really long and Marc has gotten a lot better at managing his time and energy levels for these weeks. You often see rookies or first-timers who put so much work in Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday that they’re all but cooked come Thursday morning but given his experience Marc has his routine for a Major week pretty much sorted out. When he’ll play, how much he’ll play and it will all be around being physically and mentally sharp come Sunday afternoon. Being right in the mix to win at Augusta just last month, by Sunday night he was spent. I don’t think people realise how much a golf tournament can take out of you mentally and physically. He was happy that he’d had a good week, upset that he hadn’t got the job done but he was just spent. He’s been in the hunt enough to know what it’s like at the end of a tournament and you’ve got to have a good amount of fuel in the tank come Sunday morning to get it done.
If there is a Major being played at a golf course that you haven’t performed well around, your job during that week is to work through that and work your way into the tournament to the point where you have a chance of winning. The fact of the matter is, regardless of where a Major is being played, you want to get yourself into contention because the more times you give yourself a chance, the more chance you’ve actually got of winning one.
Marc clearly has plenty of game on open, seaside golf courses. You throw wind into the mix and he’s comfortable. Regardless of the golf course or the conditions he’ll figure out a way to get it done but we know he has put in some great performances at British Opens where the conditions have been testing. If it’s firm, fast, windy and tough, he loves that. He loves the challenge and the competitive side of that. It’s what he lives for. It’s what all those guys live for. He was obviously brought up in Warrnambool where the ocean’s only a few hundred yards away. He’s really proven himself to be highly competent playing those open, exposed, links-style golf courses and I’m sure he’s looking forward to the week ahead. I look at that golf course, the open feel to the place, and I’m sure Marc’s licking his lips.
One of three principal directors at BannLynchMcDade based at Yarra Bend Golf in Melbourne, Denis McDade is a Senior Advisory Board Member of the Titleist Performance Institute and Head of TPI’s Junior Advisory Board. Denis was voted 2017’s Australian Coach of the Year, Victorian PGA Teacher of the Year in 2016 and 2001, and Australian Golf Digest Coach of the Year in 2008.
Former touring professional Dean Alaban has booked his place at the PGA Professionals Championship Final at Hamilton Island Golf Club after recording a one-stroke win at Mosman Park Golf Club in Perth on Friday.
Mosman Park GM and Head PGA Professional Tony Howell was on course to claim victory on home soil but Alaban used a birdie blitz in the middle of his round at the nine-hole layout to finish at 3-under 69, one clear of Howell with Glenn Joyner a further shot back in third place.
A regular on the Australasian and Asian tours in the early to mid-2000s, Alaban barely touched a golf club as he spent six years working on oil rigs in Malaysia and Australia but showed the benefits of devoting more time to playing and practising of late, his short game saving par on a number of occasions on the tricky Mosman Park course.
Currently based at Lakelands Country Club as the Assistant Golf Professional, the victory secures Alaban a debut appearance at Hamilton Island in September and perhaps the chance to treat his family to a long-awaited trip away.
“I dare say the wife will have a fair bit to say about that,” Alaban said when asked whether the family would be joining him.
“We go to Bali quite a bit but obviously we haven’t been able to go anywhere for quite a while now. It would be nice for us all to be able to go away together.”
Although he had never played the golf course previously, it was a somewhat familiar setting for Alaban who conducted some ladies and beginner clinics at Mosman Park shortly after completing his PGA of Australia Bridging Course.
He spent time at Royal Perth Golf Club, Joondalup Resort and worked in the retail area of the industry before landing at Lakelands under Damien Chatterley in November 2018.
With an eye on joining the seniors circuit when he turns 50, Alaban said he has been trying to squeeze in a game a week and some practise among his work and family commitments.
“I’ve got two kids who are 14 and 11 so there’s school drop off as well as shop hours and teaching so some days you don’t even get to touch a club,” Alaban conceded.
“If you work it well you might get two or three days of practise here and there. You could do more but you wouldn’t be giving any lessons and bringing in any income.
“We’re trying to play at least once a week and with a few of the local events try and get out a bit more to keep the body moving and the game sharp.
“I’ve got aspirations to go on the seniors tour so I’ve got a few more years to do that. Hopefully I can keep the body sharp. I really enjoy playing and I have a different perspective on playing now than what I used to.
“I went and worked on the oil rigs and got right away from the game and that was probably good. I realised how much I love it and enjoy it and want to be in that golfing world.
“Whether it’s professional, amateur or club just love being in that environment.”
PGA National Management Professional of the Year Josh Madden (Wembley Golf Course) was the early front-runner having reached 2-under through nine holes but four birdies in the space of five holes saw Alaban take control.
There was a dropped shot at the 16th hole but two closing pars were enough for Alaban to hold on to win, Howell’s consolation prize a spot in the 2021 Senior Australian PGA Championship.
The next of the state qualifiers is South-East Queensland at the Victoria Park Golf Complex in Brisbane on May 25 with the Victorian and North Queensland Championships to be held on May 31 at Commonwealth and Mackay golf clubs respectively.
In only its second staging the Outback Queensland Masters has sold out.
The achievement of selling out a month before tee-off across all six events comes after the inaugural 2019 event was awarded the Australia’s Best New Event at the 2020 Australian Event Awards.
Luke Bates, Golf Australia State Manager – QLD, was thrilled that so many people had signed up for the 2021 event, which will visit six towns across Outback Queensland.
“The host golf courses and their members will provide such a unique experience for all participants, we are extremely excited to see a great mix of players from across Australia converge to Outback Queensland in June and July,’’ he said.
“Of course with so many people playing this also increases the chances of the one million dollar hole in one prize going off in Longreach or a $10,000 Hole in one prize at one of the five events leading up to the finale.
“This has been an enormous team effort and we would especially like to thank our strategic partners Tourism and Events Queensland, the Queensland Government, who supported the event through the Year of Outback Tourism Events Program, and PGA of Australia.
“Support from local golf clubs and their members who so eagerly embraced the masters has been integral to this success. It could not have been staged without assistance from Banana Shire Council, Murweh Regional Council, Blackall Tambo Regional Council , Flinders Shire Council, Quilpie Shire Council and Longreach Regional Council.”
Queensland’s Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said more than 1000 players from across Australia will compete in the event, which begins on June 19 at Biloela.
“The Queensland Government, via Tourism and Events Queensland, created this unique event in 2019 in partnership with Golf Australia, to showcase Queensland’s world-class Outback experiences and drive visitors to the region,” the Premier said.
The event, which runs over six weekends from June 19 to July 25 will visit six Outback locations, including Biloela, Charleville, Quilpie, Blackall and Hughenden before concluding with the ‘Million Dollar Hole-in-One Challenge’ in Longreach.
“Selling out a month before the event kicks off demonstrates the huge pull the Outback Queensland Masters has for visitors and the strength of the concept,” the Premier said.
“Providing a boost in visitor numbers to Outback Queensland through this event couldn’t come at a better time.
“Because of Queensland’s strong response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are now in a position where people feel confident to travel to events across the state, while people in other parts of the world are bunkering down for the third or fourth lockdown.”
Tourism and Sport Minister Stirling Hinchliffe said the event was on par to bring great outcomes to the host Outback towns.
“In 2019, the event resulted in more than 3,800 visitor nights contributing more than $1.4 million to the outback economy,” he said.
“This year, the event is expected to contribute more than 5000 visitor nights for Outback Queensland – a strong increase from 2019.”
Bates said he was delighted that the team’s work was rewarded with a sell-out success, and added that live entertainment would include Queensland favourites, Busby Marou performing live in Biloela, leading Australian singer Casey Donavan in Quilpie and country-pop/rock star, Casey Barnes in Longreach, with further acts will be announced in the coming weeks.
SCHEDULE
19-20 June Biloela
26-27 June Charleville
03-04 July Quilpie
10-11 July Blackall
17-18 July Hughenden
23-25 July Longreach (Million dollar hole-in-one challenge)
For more information go to the website here
Experienced Tour player Scott Barr is hoping third time will be the charm when he tees it up at the PGA Professionals Championship of Western Australia at Mosman Park Golf Club on Friday.
There are some familiar names among the 30 competitors made up of Vocational Members of the PGA with 2019 winner Tim Elliott and defending champion Gavin Reed seeking a return to the Championship Final at Hamilton Island Golf Club from September 2-5.
Barr was tied for ninth at the 2019 Championship Final at Hamilton Island two years ago after finishing tied for second at the WA qualifier, a result that he replicated last year at Wembley Golf Course, finishing two shots behind Reed alongside Braden Becker and Andrew Gott.
Based at Collier Park Golf Course in South Perth and doing some teaching out of the Melville Golf Centre, Barr has begun to ramp up his own playing the past four weeks with a long-term view to joining the seniors circuit in 2022.
“I am thinking about the seniors. That’s why I didn’t want to take on too much when I came back to Perth,” said Barr, who returned to Australia in January of last year after close to 20 years living in Singapore.
“Alex Cejka won this week in America, ‘Clarkey’ (Darren Clarke) has won a bit and I knocked around with those couple of guys a lot over the years. ‘Pamps’ (Rod Pampling) is playing, ‘Sendo’ (John Senden). I played with everyone and I know I can play with everyone, just need to do it on the day.
“I’ve tried this distance exercise to try and get more distance into my game so it’s just my swing speed that I’m a little concerned with.
“I can certainly still hit it – I’m hitting it pretty good for what’s been going on.”
Ranked as high as 284 in the world during his career on the Asian and European tours with 14 top-five finishes on the Asian Tour alone, Barr is the most accomplished player in the field with the likes of Glenn Joyner, Vernon Sexton-Finck and Dean Alaban also boasting plenty of experience on tour.
Regardless of his performances in the past, Barr knows that good play and good luck will be a necessary combination at the tricky Mosman Park nine-holer on the banks of the Swan River.
“We’ve got a few pro-ams coming up over here but I haven’t played a great deal this year,” Barr conceded.
“The last four weeks I’ve started to try and hit some balls on the range and see where I’m at with it.
“I played at Mosman Park on Monday in a practice round so I think I’ll have a chance but we’ll see.
“You need a bit of luck going into these things. It’s a funky little course, up and down a hill, nine holes so I’d have to give myself a chance.
“Obviously I’d love to win it and get the all-expenses paid trip to Hamilton Island.
“If I don’t lose my head I think I’ll have a chance.”
For the majority of the field Friday represents a chance to have a hit, get the competitive juices flowing again and take time out from their daily duties at their respective golf clubs.
Reigning PGA Management Professional of the Year Josh Madden (Wembley Golf Course), WA Management Professional of the Year Tristan McCallum (Sea View Golf Club) and Outstanding Game Development of the Year winner Ackzel Donaldson (Joondalup Golf and Country Club) may be rusty but will hope to give a glimpse of some of their best stuff over the course of 18 holes.
