Peregian’s 15-year-old champion Cassie Porter has won the four-day Invincibles Sunshine Coast Junior Masters tournament with a phenomenal 11-under par total of 277.
The season-ending tournament for the Invincibles Tour, played on successive days at Twin Waters, Pelican Waters, Peregian and Noosa Springs, was restricted to a field of just 28 boys and girls who during the past year must have won a Junior Classic or Open event at a Sunshine Coast golf club.
The boys’ winner was 16-year-old George Giblett, of Noosa Golf Club, who beat Brookwater’s Ben Stieler on the first hole of a sudden death play-off at Noosa Springs yesterday (Wednesday).
But it was Cassie Porter who stole the show, winning for the second successive year. She won by 19 strokes from Lion Hugo of Emerald Lakes, who shot a brilliant 68 in the final round.
Cassie’s combined four-day total of 277 beat the previous best Masters score for girls by 15 shots, a record held jointly by Annie Choi (2010) and Karis Davidson (2013).
Cassie started the four-day event with a two-over 74 in extremely heavy winds at Twin Waters on Sunday, but followed that with three exceptional rounds of 66 (Pelican), 68 (Peregian) and yesterday’s 69 at Noosa Springs. Her 68 at her home course of Peregian was her first-ever flawless round.
In the past month Cassie has been Queensland Amateur Champion of Champions at Pacific Harbour, won the Maroochy River Junior Open, and came with a whirlwind finish to win the Katherine Kirk Classic – also at Maroochy River.
“In the past I was playing three-quarter good. I’d have three good rounds then put in a bad one,” Cassie explained following her win.
“But lately something has clicked and I seem to have eliminated that bad quarter.”
Proud mum Di said Cassie’s strength was her focus and concentration, and revealed her daughter had the same attitude to her school work.
The Porters are a sporty family. Cassie’s two older brothers are talented golfers and her dad John is a tennis pro and coach.
Cassie’s ambitions are as simple as they are lofty. She wants to be the No 1 golfer in the world – something she’s dreamed about since she started playing golf at the age of nine. First, though, she wants to cement her place in the top five female amateurs in Australia.
George Giblett, who is a comparative newcomer to the game, should not have needed to go to a playoff to win the boys’ division. He missed putts of less than a metre on the 17th and 18th holes, admitting that nerves had got the better of him.
Giblett, who plays off four, shot rounds of 76, 77, 72 and 73 to beat Ben Stieler (78, 75, 74, 71). Pelican Waters’ Bailey Arnott (77, 75, 74, 73) narrowly missed a putt on the 18th green which would have resulted in a three-way playoff.