Sunday, 30 March 2014

Victorian PGA Championship Pro-am - Heritage (St John) (57)


Saw an article on the Australian PGA website that the 2014 Victorian PGA Championship was to be played as a pro-am event for the first two days.  Fired off an email and was pleased that they still had places.  The event was to be played at the Heritage Golf and Country Club in the Yarra Valley outside Melbourne.



Heritage Clubhouse
The Heritage features two course, the St John course a Jack Nicklaus design on which the event was to be played, and the Henley a Tony Cashmore design.  Have played both courses previously but this was a fantastic opportunity to play it set up for tournament conditions.


Local wildlife on 18th before play
So, entry accepted I eagerly awaited the draw to see who I would be partnered with.  In the end it was a 8:39 tee off on the first hole with partners Leighton Lyle, Edward Stedman and Blake Proverbs.  Leighton and Ed are touring professionals and Blake is a young amateur from Queensland who had just finished playing in the Australian Amateur event in Adelaide and had received an invitation to the tournament.  Other notable amateurs playing included Brendon Goddard the Essendon football star and handy golfer playing off scratch.

11th hole, 165m par 3
The amateurs in the pro-am event played a stableford event off the Gold tees for the day which is the second set of tees on the St John.  Still a tough test having a slope rating of 134 under the new Australian rating system.




Must admit to a few nerves on the first tee, and a topped 3 iron to the left rough didn't help.  Managed to get back on the fairway and recover for a bogey 5 and 2 points.  The day's scoring for me didn't improve much from there, although my claim to fame will be being closest to the hole on the par 3 third hole and a solid 8 iron to 15 feet on the 17th (my playing partners all inside that).


Heritage St John, 1st tee 324m par 4 (Gold tee)
A fantastic experience, great company on a top course in tournament conditions.  I'm pleased to say that I didn't put my partners off too much, they all managed to shoot even par 72 and went on to make the cut for the weekend.
View back from 18th tee, over 12th hole 464m par 5





18th hole, 440m par 4

No comments:

Post a Comment