Sandy Creek hosts a senior amateur stunner

Phil Chapman and Christine Trimmer were back to back winners when the South Australia Senior Order of Merit rolled into a sunny Sandy Creek. JOHN ANDERSON reports:

Officially into winter and, following the cancellation of last week’s round at Mt Osmond for (awful) weather, SA Seniors were very pleasantly surprised to be presented with a perfect day for the Sandy Creek SASOOM round on Monday the 2^nd of June.

Sandy Creek GC located at the gateway to the Barossa Valley does involve a bit of a journey but 36 players made the effort. Sandy Creek hosted a very successful round of the SA Senior Championship way back in 2012 but it is no secret that the club subsequentially fell on hard times so it was wonderful to see full green fairways and freshly cut greens on arrival. (Btw – Denis Dale won that event for us “oldies”).

Your correspondent had the privilege of being paired with two members and was therefore able to hear the details of how the efforts of volunteers had completely turned around the fortunes of Sandy Creek. One of my partners was actually the one who got up at 5:00am to cut the greens !

The club has gone from a low of 170 members to 500 plus with minimal debt, a full complement of new machinery and a fully functioning bore and pump system that was pouring water into their dam. A huge credit to all involved !

The Sandy Creek layout presents undulating fairways with views of the Barossa hills and is comprised of many challenging and interesting holes and green complexes. Combined with the kikuyu fairways limiting run the course it would certainly warrant another Championship visit and the scores returned seem to confirm the challenge.

Senior Men

As forecast after his win at the previous Flagstaff Hill round, Phil Chapman is going to be a real OOM threat to the established contenders. The Aston Hills member shot 73/72 to again take out the Gross and Nett.

State Senior Champion David Pateyjohns (Willunga) was second in the Gross with 76 with Tea Tree Gully’s Craig Gordon (77) next.

David Alsop from Grange came second in the Nett (73) with Pateyjohns a shot back.

Super Senior Men

Local “gun” Steve Brown shot an excellent 79 to win the Gross from the Glenelg pair of John Keogh (82) and Brian Welsh (85).

Brown’s 72 Nett was also plenty good enough from Taras Mular (Grange) (76) by one from Keogh.

Senior/Super Senior Women

Christine Trimmer (The Vines) matched Chapman’s achievement with wins in the Gross and Nett (82/79). The usual suspects of Amanda Heapy (The Vines) (87) and Susan Olsen (Grange) (90) took the Gross placings.

A (welcome) newcomer in Jinman Zhang from Kooyonga pushed Amanda and Susan (80’s) into equal third in the Nett. Jiman matched Christine’s nett 79 to lose on a Countback.

Many thanks to Sandy Creek for their efforts – we lok forward to next year.