The tournament opened on Sunday afternoon, 23rd November, at the Kiama Clubhouse for the official registration where tournament director Mr Bob Smith (Kiama) welcomed everyone to this inaugural event. While attendance at the registration afternoon wasn’t compulsory, it is always a good chance for visitors to the region to familiarise themselves with the forthcoming week of competition and information about local rules, NTPs, tee off times, etc. There were in excess of 170 registrations and about 130 of them, mainly from outside the Illawarra, took advantage of the afternoon and the free finger food.
For those who have not previously participated in these tournaments you may be surprised to know that the daily first prize in each of the five grades of competition was $100 and the prize money was even greater for the winners of the 54 hole event. One of the attractions of these tournaments is the allocation of prizes where each player is only entitled to win one cash prize during the week. As an example, if a player was to place in the top three on any day, but also happened to win the 54 hole event, then they would only be allocated the higher prize money associated with the 54 hole event. The prizes won in the daily competitions would then be reallocated to other players who had not previously won anything. It allows for more winners throughout the week.
The competition started at Jamberoo the next morning and players were greeted by eager volunteers serving free tea or coffee with either scones with jam and cream or hot raisin toast. I volunteered to be the official taster for the day so needless to say, I was pretty busy. Competition got under way around 7.30 with the humidity starting to build and we could feel that it was going to be a warm one. The afternoon was quite hot with a late storm that unfortunately hit the afternoon groups. The course was in great condition with lots of run on the fairways and the greens receptive to nice high irons. Despite this, good scores were rare with only eight men and three ladies playing to their handicap on the first day.
On Tuesday the weather improved slightly with no rain, but a stiff southerly throughout the day and on Thursday we had early rain w2ith cloud for the rest of the day. The first major trophies to be decided were for the NSWVGA Shield (36 holes) which in the men’s division was won by Jamberoo’s Barry Plucknett with 81 points from Colin Hope (Bathurst) with 73 points. The ladies trophy was won by Maureen Butler (Wollongong) with 72 points from Kay Ison (Jamberoo) with 66 points. The two winners also won the Alf Harvey Memorial Trophy and the Bernice Evans Memorial Trophy respectively.
The major prize of the tournament was the 54 hole event and Jamberoo members again figured in the prizes with Margaret Stephens winning the Ladies event and Ken Bradley runner up in the Men’s. The placegetters were :
Men Ladies
1st Dennis Hurst (Kew) 115 points Margaret Stephens (Jamb) 99 points 2nd Ken Bradley (Jamb) 104 Valerie Michael (Wollongong) 97
3rd Gerry Cox (Griffith) 102 Lyn Walker (Jamberoo) 95
The detailed daily results are on the NSWVGA website. If you search for “NSWVGA” on your browser, click on “News”, then click “28/11 Seaside Valley results” and click on the red banner with “Full Week of Golf Results”. Congratulations to all the winners.
The organising committee from both clubs will be meeting shortly to look at how the week went and whether there are any areas in which we can improve. I only received positive feedback from the visitors, so indications are that we did a reasonable job at our first attempt. However, if you have any suggestions for next year, can you please advise either Lance, Stuart or myself over the next week and we will communicate that to the combine committee.
This event would not have been as successful without the help of a dedicated band of volunteers who arrived at the crack of dawn and often didn’t leave until quite late in the afternoon. The Committee would like to express its thanks to the following members:
Ian Boles Robyn Boles
John Childs Robyn Gregson
John Ellsmore Lyn Kuskey
Don Hazell Margaret Potter
John Pringle
Alan (Possum) Rodgers
Barry Walker
Reg Wilson