2010 Sand-Green Championships | Inter-District Challenge Match at Muree | ACT 2010 Junior Team for National Championships | Encourage Junior event in Newcastle | Steven Tieck Farewell | Distance Measuring Devices | Submission to ACTEWAGL

KACPER GANCARZ WINS TROPHY AGAIN, BUT RYAN RUFFELS WILL THREATEN IN THE FUTURE

REPORT ON ACT-MONARO JUNIOR WEEK OF GOLF OCTOBER 2010
Jim Jackson, Junior Promotions Officer, ACT-Monaro DGA

Jessica, Grace, Madelaine and Charelle prior to play at Queanbeyan on day 3.	Some of the boys discussing course strategy before play day 3	JPO Jim with cadets Liam, Bailey, Martin, Jack, Courtney and Grace at Queanbeyan, before play

Yowani junior golfer Kacper Gancarz won the Butch Brown Memorial Trophy last week with the best aggregate score for the three rounds of the competition. This is Kacper’s second win -- he also won in Oct 2009.  Kacper’s total of 231 shots was 2 better than Lewis Schenk (Federal), with Joel Shields (Young) a further shot behind.  These results not only provide valuable prize vouchers at the respective Golf Course Pro Shops, but also handy JNJG Subaru State Age qualifying, Junior Vardon and Junior Derrin Points.

The competition was played under beautiful weather conditions and on excellently presented golf courses at the following clubs -- Capital (Wednesday), Murrumbidgee (Thursday) and Queanbeyan (Friday).  Around 60 GA-handicapped juniors played, and these were divided into two Divisions -- Div.1 for juniors with handicaps between 2-19, who played a stroke event and Div. 2 for juniors with handicaps over 20, who played a Stableford event; in addition 6-8 sub-juniors/cadets played a 9-hole competition following the main field.

Detailed scores for all rounds are available on www.actgolf.com.au, only a selection of some impressive performances are presented here.

Wednesday at Capital saw Kacper (h/c 3) start the week off well with a score of 69 to win Division 1gross, but not to be outdone, his younger brother Jakub, who plays off 11, scored an impressive 62 nett to take out the nett prize in Division 1.  Young Fairbairn junior Joshua Hunter also had a great day at Capital as he scored 49 points to easily take out the division 2 prize.  The great condition that the course was in must have been a factor in the performances as 7 of the 32 in Division 1 and 9 of 24 in Division 2 beat the course rating.  

Thursday at Murrumbidgee saw the golf course fight back.  As this event was run in conjunction with the MCC Junior Open the course was set up fairly hard, off the blue tees, so the results to Par were not quite as impressive as at Capital.  The winner of Division 1 gross and thereby the MCC Junior Open Champion for 2010 was James Day from Yowani (h/c 9) with a score of 79, on a count-back from Ben Hogan (h/c 10) from Gungahlin Lakes.  Daniel Reale from the NSW Golf Club and Sean Crilley from Gungahlin Lakes were a shot further back on 80.  Chloe Thornton from Fairbairn, of a handicap of 22, narrowly beat James Brown from Queanbeyan (h/c 34) with 45 points to his 44, to take out the Division 2 prize. 

Friday at Queanbeyan saw the players once again perform well against the course.  Ryan Ruffels (RCGC, h/c 2) won the Div 1 gross event with a score of 74 on a count back from Lewis Schenk (Federal, h/c 7); with Dylan Wallace (Yowani) a shot further back in 3rd place.  This was 12-year old Ryan’s only game in the Junior Week of Golf as he had been in Penrith playing in the NSW Junior Open, where he finished in the top 20.  As reported on the NSWGA web site Ryan is a star in the making.  In a brilliant performance, Hope Cohen from Moss Vale, who plays off a handicap of 18, easily won the nett event with a staggering score of 58 shots, which was 5 better than her nearest rival Queanbeyan local Lachlan Wall who scored 63 nett.  Hope started off relatively poorly dropping 3 shots on the first two holes, but finished strongly with 9 pars in a row -- obviously her 18 handicap will take a hammering. A second impressive performance was achieved by 11 year-old Chloe Thornton from Fairbairn in Division 2 who scored 46 Stableford points, two better than her nearest rival another Fairbairn junior Nicola Kajtez.  Like Hope, Chloe will also be playing off a low teen handicap in the very near future.

As can be seen in the cumulative 54-hole results table below, Divisions 1 Gross and Nett results were close, but Chloe Thornton won Division 2 by a clear 5 Stableford points with consecutive scores of 42, 45 and 46, even though her handicap was unofficially adjusted for this competition after the first two rounds.

The recent rain seems to have improved the condition of the courses played and the DGA sincerely thanks the respective clubs for the use of their courses.

Results - Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 |

Major Place Getters Results below

REPORT ON DGA 2010 SAND-GREEN CHAMPIONSHIPS

BOMBALA GOLF CLUB 18th & 19th September 2010
By Jim Jackson (JPO)

Cliff Richards (L), Theo Theodosiou (centre) and Steve Tatham (R), prior to tee shots at start of Play-off next to the 10th green	Post Match presentation – Cliff Richards (Nimmitabel) receiving Open 1st place voucher from DGA Captain Antony Bird	Post Match presentation – Theo Theodosiou receiving Junior Champions 1st place voucher from DGA Captain Antony Bird	Post Match presentation – Steve Tatham receiving 1st place voucher from DGA Captain Antony Bird

The 2010 ACT-Monaro DGA Sand-Green Championships culminated in an exciting 3-way sudden-death play-off on Sunday 19th September, after the leading three players in Division 1 had tied on the same gross score of 164 shots.

Cliff Richards from Nimmitabel Golf Club, who plays off a handicap of 10, shot two steady rounds of 82. Steve Tatham from Bombala Golf Club, off a handicap of 11, improved on his Saturday score of 83 with 81 on Sunday, but apparently let a great score slip after finishing the front 9 only 1 over the card.  On his first game on sand greens 15year old Royal Canberra Golf Club junior Theo Theodosiou (h/c 9) also improved in his second round shooting 80 after an “ordinary” 84 on Saturday.  Like Steve, Theo let a great start slip on Sunday, after he had scored birdies on the 2nd and 4th  holes and pars on the other holes up to hole 8. As one of his playing partners, I could see a great round in store until he hit the tree-stump on the side of the 8th tee, for the ball to end up further away from the pin than when it was teed up.  After a second shot into the pine trees on the right side of the fairway and a third shot into the middle of the trunk of one of these pines, Theo was struggling on his way to an 8 on this very short par 4.  Although relatively young and inexperienced, Theo did not let this quadruple bogey overly upset him and he steadied to play a good back 9.  

Bombala golfer Phillip McIntosh, who was leading after day 1 with a score of 81, faded on day 2 with an 85 to miss the play-off by only two shots, but he hardly holed a putt on the Sunday so could probably consider himself somewhat unlucky. He may also have been tired after all of the work he put in preparing the course.

Although holes 10, 13, 14 and 18 were chosen as the play-off holes, Cliff showed a steady nerve and scored a straightforward par on the first play-off hole (10th) to win the Championship.  Although all players had hit excellent drives off the tee down the middle of the fairway, Theo hit his 2nd shot way left into the trees to make an up-and-down almost impossible, so his likely best result was a 5. Although Steve and Cliff had both hit their second shots just right of the green, Cliff showed his coolness in chipping to within a metre, whereas Steve over-hit his chip, which finished on the far side of the green, and he failed to hole his return putt of about 5 metres.  So, with his par, Cliff took out the Open Championship with Steve taking out the runner-up position.  Theo won the Junior Championship category, with another Royal Canberra junior Charlie Cameron taking the runner-up prize.  . 

The ‘B’ Grade Competition, for players with handicaps above 14, was won by Bob Johnson from Bombala (h/c 20) with nett scores of 71 and 65.  Irrepressible Merv Doutch also from Bombala (h/c 15) took out the runners up placing with nett scores of 68 and 74. DGA Captain Antony Bird probably reduced his 22 handicap with nett scores of 74 and 71 in securing equal 3rd place in the B grade nett competition.  However, he easily won the Maneroo Motel snoring competition between rounds 1 and 2, with a sonorous performance.

Next year’s event is scheduled for Delegate in September 2011, but it is already rumored that several Bombala players will be making regular visits to Delegate to master some of the subtleties of that courses. 

INTER-DISTRICT CHALLENGE MATCH AT MUREE, between NEWCASTLE DGA and ACT-MONARO DGA, 5th and 6th June 2010.

(from M. J. Jackson, Vice President & JPO)

A team of 20 ACT-Monaro DGA representative players (8 seniors, 6 colts, 6 juniors) and 3 managers spent the w/e 5th and 6th June, 2010, at Raymond Terrace, NSW, playing in a two-day Inter-District Golf Challenge at the Muree Golf Club.  This event against the Newcastle DGA is held every third year, on a home and away basis, and is part on the Inter-District Challenge Series that comprises teams from the four DGA’s of ACT-M, Newcastle, Illawarra and Sydney.

Despite torrential rain in the Newcastle region in the lead up to the weekend and fears that the event would have to be postponed, the rain stopped on Friday night and held off for the two days of the event.  Parts of the course were sodden and local rules of “lift, clean and replace” applied.  With the help of some eagle-eyed spotters no balls were lost through plugging on the soggy 1st and 10th fairways.  Ten match-play foursomes were played on Saturday and 20 individual match-play games were played on Sunday. 

The 2010 Newcastle side proved to be much stronger than the 2010 ACT-Monaro team, in two out of the three divisions.  Although the Seniors squared their foursomes matches on the Saturday (2-2), both of the other sides lost – Colts 1-2, Juniors 0-3, giving Newcastle a handy 7 -3 lead going into Sunday.    Despite an early night on the Saturday, following a very responsible and largely sober evening at the Muree Golf Club Bistro, the golfing gods did not smile any better for the ACT-Monaro on Sunday in the Individual Match Play Competition.  Again, the Seniors put in a strong performance and squared their competition 4 – 4; but the Colts lost 2- 4, whilst the Juniors were defeated 1 -5.  The overall result, therefore, was a 10 – 20 loss, a complete reversal of the result of the previous challenge, 3 years ago in Goulburn. 

The last minute unavailability of two of the top ACT players may have been a minor factor in the loss; however, the Newcastle team is currently stronger than in previous years and it does contain the NSW Junior Champion and current Australian Junior Representative, Jake Higginbottom.  Several of the losses were very close and comments from ACT players indicated these could easily have gone the other way, which would have made for a much closer set of figures.

For the ACT-Monaro side the following 3 players were undefeated on the w/e --, Ian Gibson and Steve Boden (Gungahlin Lakes) and Matt Skipperdene (Yowani).  Other highlights include --  Ian Gibson and Matt Skipperdene’s strong win on Saturday and Scott Fogg’s runaway win on Sunday; Cameron Haines’ drive of about 310m down the first (pity it was behind trees, left of the fairway); Ryan Ruffels (who is not yet long off the tee) hitting his 4 iron 2nd shot on the first to 2 m (only to be beaten by a birdie putt of about 8m from his opponent);  and Alan Haughie’s eagle on the 11th where the golf ball apparently did not see much of the fairway.

Full details on the results are shown in the following table and most of the team is included in the photograph.  Sincere thanks are forwarded to both the Muree Golf Club and the Newcastle DGA for magnificent hospitality over the weekend.  Brian Rodgers (Rodgers Coaches, Canberra) is also thanked for getting the team safely to and from Raymond Terrace through some very ordinary weather.

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ACT 2010 Junior Team for National Championships

The following players have been selected for the 2010 ACT Junior Golf Team that will contest the annual Australian Boys’ Championships and Interstate Junior Golf Series at the Launceston Golf Club in mid April – Jordan Ayre (Royal Canberra Golf Club), Sean Crilley (Gungahlin Lakes Golf Club), Conner Deck (Murrumbidgee Country Club), Kacper Gancarz (Yowani Country Club), Ryan Ruffels (Royal Canberra Golf Club), and Dylan Wallace (Yowani Country Club).  Kacper has been selected as the team captain.  Josh Armstrong (Gold Creek Country club) has also been identified as the team reserve. Only two of the team (Conner and Kacper) are backing up from last year at Alice Springs, where ACT finished in last place.  Although lacking in experience, this team has a number of young talented players and the Manager, Jim Jackson, is confident that ACT will improve on last year’s disappointing result. The team and management fly out on Monday 12th April and return on Wednesday 21st April.  Both Titleist Golf and Wilson Sporting Goods are team sponsors. Click on photo to see a larger version.

2010 ACT Junior Team L-R: Jordan Ayre, Ryan Ruffels, Leigh Hunter (coach), Dylan Wallace, Kacper Gancarz, Sean Crilley; absent Conner Deck

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