Golf Australia December 2014

ANYONE who witnessed the weekend duel between Adam Scott and Rory McIlroy at the Australian Open last November has eagerly been waiting 12 months for the pair to square off again. When the Northern Irishman, still in celebratory mode after winning The Open and US PGA championships, let it be known he was heading back to Sydney to defend his title, I’m sure the team at Golf Australia, who own the championship, cracked open the champagne. Scott and McIlroy head a quality field of internationals, led by young American Jordan Spieth and in-form Zimbabwean Brendon de Jonge, as well as a strong local representation including 2014 PGA Tour winners Geoff Ogilvy, John Senden, Matt Jones and Steven Bowditch. It’s a deep field that befits the prestige of the event, which…

Yering Meadows is in the paradoxically intriguing situation of being a young golf course with an old club driving it. The former Croydon Golf Club became the first of now several established clubs to dip its toes in the waters of relocation when the suburban Melbourne club upped stumps last decade and moved to a new site in the Yarra Valley. As is happening with increasing regularity amid the urban squeeze, the land at Croydon was simply too valuable for the club to ignore the offer put forward by developers Australand.The club swapped 80 years of history at its original site to begin again 20-plus kilometres away at Yering, banking a significant sum of money and expanding to 27 holes in the process. The land at Yering comprises 131 hectares…

THE COURSE LOCATION: Victoria Rd,Yering.About 55 minutes’drive east of the Melbourne CBD via the Eastern Freeway and Maroondah Highway.The drive from the Sandbelt region takes about 50 minutes. CONTACT: (03) 9738 9000. WEBSITE: www.yeringmeadows.com.au DESIGNER: Ross Watson (2008). SLOPE RATINGS: Nursery: men: 144/136/131; women: 135/131/123; Homestead: men: 142/139/130; women: 134/130/120; Valley: men: 144/134/127; women: 134/133/123. PLAYING SURFACES: Santa Ana couch (tees), Legends couch (fairways), Hard, Sheeps and Red fescues (rough), Creeping Bentgrass (greens). COURSE SUPERINTENDENT: Toby Drummond. PGA PROFESSIONALS: Geoff George, Michael Waghorn. GREEN FEES: $55 (weekdays); $65 (weekends). THE CLUB MEMBERSHIPS: Categories include two-, five-, six- and seven-day (male and female), limited access (20 rounds), intermediate, junior, social, daylight savings (spanning October to March) as well as trial memberships in various categories.The club is waiving the joining fee…

IF you’re like me, you love the Ryder Cup. I’m a big fan of many sports, but the match between the United States and Europe is comfortably my favourite thing to watch on television. It’s that good and, for me, very much the exception to the norm. No other golf tournament would get close to my top-ten things to view on the box. It’s a magic event.You just don’t see that amount of passion in anything else. It’s fascinating from a purely golfing perspective, too. No matter what the score is at any one time over the three days of the matches, it always feels like Europe is going to win. I have no idea why. But the Euros always seem to play the last few holes better than their…

KICKING a footy between the goals from close range is hard enough for most people; imagine how hard it might be to slot a golf ball through from 180 metres. That was the scenario presented to 2013 US PGA champion Jason Dufner, 2006 US Open champ Geoff Ogilvy and multiple European Tour event winner Brett Rumford on the eve of the recent Perth International. The trio was challenged to each hit a golf ball from one end of Perth’s Patersons Stadium, the home of AFL football in Western Australia, to a target suspended between the goal posts at the other end of the field. After several attempts, a couple of near-misses, and a move to the centre square, Rumford was the first to hit the target – a two-metre-high football…

FINAL ROUND WHEN defending champion Peter Lonard went without a birdie for 22 consecutive holes over the weekend of the championship, his hopes of back-to-back Australian Open victories appeared shot. Lonard made 22 consecutive pars between the 7th hole on Saturday and the 11th hole of Sunday’s final round before finishing with a run of four birdies in the final seven holes to snatch the title. The Sydneysider had an amazing turnaround in those last seven holes, making birdies on the 12th, 14th, 15th and 17th (via a chip-in) and a par on the tough par-4 16th. Lonard stood on the tee of the par-5 18th hole holding on to a three-shot lead.The final hole provided a challenging dilemma, with water at the front and down the entire right hand…