As we commemorate Gallipoli’s centenary, it’s fitting to take stock of golf’s links to the Great War and how one of the sport’s first home-grown stars paid the ultimate price in Europe.
Clyde Pearce came to public prominence aged 15 when, already a scratch golfer, he finished 19th in the Australian Amateur Championship.
And from his humble beginnings in Hobart, the wiry yet effortlessly powerful Pearce reached four straight national amateur finals from 1906-09, but won just once in 1908.
It was in that year, however, that he also won the Australian Open at The Australian in Sydney, the host club of this year’s national championship.
Pearce shot and later equalled the course record on his way to becoming the first national champion born on Australian soil.
Having spent time living in Corowa and on the plains of southern Western Australia, he enlisted for national service and while he didn’t arrive at Gallipoli until November, 1915, he would go on to serve heroically across several theatres of war.
Tragically, Pearce was shot and killed in the bloody Battle of Messines in June, 1917, his talents – like all of his fallen comrades – wasted far from home in a hail of bullets.
Read more of Pearce’s extraordinary life and legacy …http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/golf/the-life-and-death-of-lieutenant-clyde-pearce-the-first-native-born-winner-of-the-australian-open/story-fni2frh2-1227315216478