Twin Creeks’ Denis Dale and Newcastle’s Jill Blenkey are the 2015 Golf NSW Men’s and Women’s Senior Order of Merit Champions.
The gruelling 41-event Men’s season concluded this week at the Cromer Senior Open. The Women’s season was conducted over a shorter 11- event schedule as the title has migrated to a calendar year format
Dale is a phenomenon in Senior Amateur Golf, with the 2015 title being his 9th Men’s SOOM title in 10 years. He amassed an impressive 1870 points from his best 14 events this year, including 5 wins and 3 runner-up finishes.
It was Dale’s win at the Bonnie Doon Senior in April that ignited the consistent run of results that he has become renown for. He finished in the top 5 of his next 10 events, including wins at Oatlands, Cabramatta, and Camden.
Greg Stanford of Mona Vale and Dale Tapper of Bayview fought out the minor places with Stanford’s 3rd place finish at Cromer proving enough to take the runners-up spot for the year on 1667 points, a mere 17 points in front of Tapper.
Kogarah’s ‘Mr Consistency’ Stephen Musgrave claimed the Men’s Nett Senior Order of Merit, finishing the season with 12 top 10 finishes (including a win at Wollongong and a nett second at the Men’s NSW Senior Championship) with a total of 1623 points. Nett Runner-up honours went to Robert Lewis of Windsor.
Jill Blenkey claimed back-to-back Golf NSW Women’s Senior Order of Merit titles after finishing with a score of 860 based on her best 6 results. Runner-up honours went to Nikki Haines of Moore Park, who finished just 35 points behind on a score of 825.
Haines got off to a flying start this year backing up her second place finish in the Women’s NSW Senior Championship stroke play, with back-to-back wins at the Fern Bay Trophy and Rose Bay Cup, however she was unable to hold on as the fast finishing Blenkey put together an incredible run of form in her final six events, including wins at the CSGA Tournament, ACT Seniors and Long Reef, as well as three runners-up finishes.