Australia will send a deep and very strong contingent to the 2016 ISPS Handa World Blind Golf Championships in Japan.
No fewer than nine Australian golfers will compete at the Shinrinkouen Golf Club, in the Saitama Prefecture, from November 9-10 – an incredible and richly deserved proportion of the 56-strong field.
The Australian team will be very strong with two current world champions – West Australian duo Jenny McCallum and Malcolm Elliott – who receive automatic invitations.
Graham Coulton, of NSW, also receives an invitation as a member of the International Blind Golf Association board, but would have qualified anyway under Australia’s selection criteria.
The other six places have been determined by the BGA’s Order of Merit, based on performance at BGA’s five major events over a two-year period.
The entrants are David Blyth (Vic), Deanna Minciullo, (WA), Doug Burrows (WA) and Rod Mills, Gary Sargent and Stephen Mitchell, all of New South Wales.
BGA officials, who are thrilled to have two female representatives, say they have a very strong team, all capable of winning a world championship and/or the Japan Open which precedes the world championship.
The International Blind Golf Association has established criteria that entrants in the 2016 world titles must have a handicap at or under the maximum for the three sight classifications and must have played in a minimum of eight qualifying events in the two-year period until December last year.