Glenelg go straight from Division Two to winning Division One; Thaxted Park return to Division One; Flagstaff Hill wins promotion to Division Two
Report by John Anderson.
The South Australian Senior Pennant winners for Season 2023 were decided on Monday 20th of November at a breezy Kooyonga Golf Club.
In Division One, for the first time in the 17 year history of the competition perennial winners Tea Tree Gully were not featured, having been knocked out by Glenelg in a semi-final. Glenelg and Blackwood had finished one and two in the minor round so it was appropriate that they met in the final.
Promoted after winning Division Two last year, Glenelg had assembled a very strong team and even with Nick Wake missing a number of minor round matches through being overseas had still finished on top. Combined with their familiarity of the sand-belt – although Blackwood had played a practice round at Kooyonga – Glenelg started as slight favourites although Blackwood’s side featured a past SA State Champion, another former State player and also players with Simpson Cup experience.
The final result of 5.5 to 1.5 appears quite comfortable it does not show that one match went down #19 and three matches were decided on the 18th. SA Women’s SOOM winner, Gale MacPherson got Blackwood off to a good start with a convincing 5&3 win – Gale is the only women competing in Division One and has more than held her own in anchoring the Blackwood team. Glenelg’s enigmatic John Keough hit back with his own 5&3 win so both sides had one win in the “sheds”. The strong Villi Koronis had a day out and won 5&4 for Glenelg so they had two wins on the board.
The remaining matches were all close with Karri Heikkonen battling back from an early deficit to go the 18th but Glenelg’s Greg Way prevailed 1-up. Blackwood desperately need to get another win on the board – David Lightbody and James Mattsson headed of down the par 5 first again to break their tied match – James (Glenelg) winning the 19th.
The highly experienced Deane Harris (Glenelg) battled Blackwood’s (relatively) “young gun” Mark Bolton in an intriguing match of guile v power with Deane winning 2-up on #18. The match between Nick Wake and Glen McGough was halved also at the 18th.
So a third team has now won the John Davey Trophy.
In Division Two, Mt Osmond had gone through the minor round undefeated but Thaxted Park had added the highly credentialed James Coulson to the top of their order late in he season and were definitely in with a chance with both sides being from “hills” courses so no advantage on the sand-belt of Kooyonga.
It was close – Thaxted winning 4&3 to return to Division One after dropping out last year.
The experience of Mt Osmond’s John Hill got them underway with a win, matched by Thaxted’s Boyd Austin. Chris Gill got another win for “ The Mount” again matched by Thaxted with Michael Prescott. Another win to Mt Osmond from Sam Robertson evened up by Glenn Oldfield for Thaxted with the inclusion James Coulson proving to be the deciding factor with a 3&2 win at Number One.
Division Three saw top side Flagstaff Hill play the third placed Sand Creek and in this case the placings held with Flagstaff winning 4.5 to 2.5 and winning promotion to Div Two. Flagstaff’s bottom three of Peter Cooper, Paul Starrs and Simon Squire got them off to a good start although Simon’s win came at the 19th.
Shame McMahon got one back for Sandy Creek equalled by Marc Dolphin for Flaggy which gave them the winning four points although Stephen Brown earlier had won big for Sandy Creek at the top of the order. David Main and Roco Polito’s match was duly halved.