There wasn’t just low scores experienced during this year’s Club Championships. In addition to the cut mark of 152 to qualify in A Grade, which was a record low, the average age of the qualifiers and their average handicaps are also the lowest seen in some time. Six of our original eight qualifiers are aged under 20 whilst their average handicap is just 0.6.
17 year old, Ben Stieler, a member of our winning Division 1 junior pennant team last year, is our top qualifier with rounds of 74 and 71. He secured his number one seeding on countback over Stephen Cox who had rounds of 72 and 73. Stephen, who is 20, was runner up in last year’s Club Championship won by Lawry Flynn and will be looking to go one better in 2018.
Two other members of our junior pennant team, Sam Slater, aged 16 and Jordan Hampson, aged 15, also both qualified with scores of 148 and 149 respectively. Sam, our current Junior Champion, and Jordan are unable to play as they are playing in the World Junior Golf Championships in Jakarta this weekend. We wish both boys the best of luck. Their spots in the final eight have gone to Wade Edwards, aged 20, who will play Ben and Dylan Barraclough, aged 18, who will play Stephen.
On the other side of the draw we will see two former PGA professionals in Kurt Carlson and Cameron Powell looking to secure a spot in the semi-finals. Cameron is a six-time winner of the Club Championships and this match, which is worthy of a final, is expected to draw plenty of interest.
Out of our eight quarter finalists, Cameron is our only previous Champion. If successful again in 2018 he would move from tied fourth to outright third on the list of multiple winners. Only Stan Francis (8) and Alex Colledge (14), who the Club Championships are named after, have won more times since this event was first played in 1898.
Only two shots separate the pairing in our last quarter final. Rick Davenport, who shot rounds of 72 and 75 will play Ilija Soldan who shot rounds of 74 and 75. Again both players were part of last year’s pennant campaign in our Masters and Open teams and this will be another great match.
Lawry Flynn wasn’t available to defend his title this year and will instead play in the 2018 Northern Territory Men’s Amateur at the Darwin Golf Club later this month. This tournament is an R & A World Ranking and National Ranking Event.
Each match will be played from the 10th tee with the first match scheduled at 7am.
Click here to see the full draw for the A. H. Colledge Club Championships.