Parkes Golf Club
By Peter Bristol
Parkes Golf Club had the honour of hosting the NSW Golf Men’s Country Week Championship at Parkes Golf Club on the weekend.
There were 117 representatives from across NSW, excluding the Metropolitan area, represented in an event that plays as an Individual event and also a team’s event with 12 District represented by six team members.
Players had to have a GA handicap of 9.4 or less to contest the event.
Parkes is in the Lachlan Valley region, and we had Aaron Wilkie and Jack Elliott in the local side.
Parkes Golf Club received high praise from the event staff from NSW Golf, the visiting players and visitors to the event.
Our greens staff again received worthy praise for the presentation of the course and high recognition to all the volunteers who helped over an extended period to have the course in peak condition for the event.
Parkes Shire Council were the local sponsors for the weekend and were present for the event on both days and the final presentation and the club were grateful for their support.
The event was played without preferred lies which enabled us to have a course record set for the first time for the new course layout.
Day one saw benign conditions with an easier course setup and low winds and the players took advantage with 14 of them scoring under par and with Andrew Kirkman from Kempsey and Cooper Giddings from Dubbo setting the bar high and holding the new course record with 7 under par scores.
Colin Mitchell from Shell Cove shot a six under par score as well.
Our Lachlan Valley team struggled somewhat with John Betland from Forbes the only standout with a 3 under round.
His brother Steve was next best on 3 over and back in 35th place. Unfortunately, Aaron shot an 8 over and was 83rd and Jack a 12 over and back in 111th position.
Day two saw Logan set the course a bit harder and the wind also blew a bit stronger, which the normal local golfer is used to.
Only 8 players managed to go under par on the 2nd day but Jye Halls from Mollymook did manage to create the new course record with an 8 under 64, and shot himself up the rankings big time.
The next best score was 3 back with Ethan Harvey from Kiama having a good day but the overall championship was claimed by Cooper Giddings who shot a 4 under 68 for a great 11 under total and a win by 2 strokes from Ethan with Jye a further stroke back tied with Andrew Kirkman who could only manage a 1 under on the final round.
In the teams event only John Betland fired an under par score again with a 70 to finish in 5th place, with brother Steve firing another 3 over to finish in 29 position overall. The Lachlan Valley side finished the tournament in 8th place and are looking forward to next years event in Cowra.
Jack settled for a pair of 84s for the weekend and Aaron had a solid 3 over round on the 2nd day to finish in 56 spot.
One noticeable local player for the weekend was Andrew Brownlow from the Peakk Hill club who won the net event contested in conjunction with his to par net score of 132 winning by a single shot. An excellent result off his playing handicap of 7.
Huge thanks to all who made this a memorable event and this has pushed the local layout to a prominent position in country golf, and a special thanks to the PGC golfers who gave up their course for the promotion of golf.
On Sunday afternoon the PGC contested a 9 hole members Ambrose event and also there was a charity long drive event for squash player extraordinaire Henry Kross.
The winners of the Ambrose were Helen, Phil and Cameron Standen with a 22.5 net, leading home Peter and Zoe Magill and David Hodges with a 23.23 net.
Vets Golf
By John Dwyer
In one of the closest finishes for some time only one point separated five players at last week's twin-towns veterans golf competition played at Forbes.
Three players finished on 37 points and another two on 36 with local Peter Barnes getting the decision on a count-back from team mate Ken Sanderson. Another Forbes player Adam Andrews was the unlucky one of the trio and had to settle for a ball in third place.
On a good day for golf only 26 players competed - 15 from Forbes and 11 from Parkes - with Forbes taking the team honors by 216 points to 198.
Forbes dominated the nearest-to-pins with Kim Herbert the A grade winner on the 18th hole and Frank Hanns the best in B grade on the ninth.
Parkes' Graham Cooke won the encouragement award.
The ball sweep went to 34 points and the winners were: 37 points - Adam Andrews; 36 - John Dwyer (P) and Les Little (F); 35 - Barry Parker (F); 34 - Rob Lea and Nym Dziuba (P) and Scott Kirkman, Alf Davies and Frank Hanns (F).
After play Forbes players voted to join Parkes vets in starting all twin-towns events over Spring and Summer at 9am with registrations taken from 8.30.
This week it is back to Parkes for the 18 holes.