The finest emerging Victorian golf talent came out to play today at the sixteenth Victorian Primary Schools Golf State Final at Kooringal GC.
Sportsmanship and fun were the theme of the day as 104 players made their way through two qualifying stages to reach Kooringal. The state-wide qualifying process included 2,500 primary school players teeing it up at over 45 different venues in all corners of the state. The modified competition has been going from strength to strength each year, and it was great to see so many students again having a go at golf in 2016.
Keeley Marx playing in her fifth PS State Final made it back to back wins in fine style shooting a two under par 69, a remarkable achievement that belies her years. In the last four years Keeley has finished third, third, first and first. Having recently returned from the School Sport Australia national golf titles in South Australia as part of the winning Victorian team, this win caps off a remarkable run for Keeley. This puts Keeley on the same page as other two time winners of this event including recent Rio Olympic Australian Golf representative Su Oh who went back to back in 2007 and 2008 underlying the quality of player coming through the primary school system.
U12 Victorian team captain Jeneath Wong shot a 1 under 70 to finish second, with Jazy Roberts shooting 75 to fill third place in the girls section.
Jacob Taberner was equally impressive in taking out the boys title, blitzing the field by a staggering 4 shots and engraving his name on a trophy alongside some of Australia’s current young touring pros, including Geoff Drakeford and Deyen Lawson. Jacob has shown great talent over the last few years and it has no surprise to see him up at the top of the leader board at the end of the day.
It was a little tighter in determining the other two minor places with a three-player countback needed to settle the results, a countback that went all the way to individual holes. Harrison Gomez, Bailey Goodall and Max Miraglia all shot impressive scores of 73, however Harrison and Bailey took home second and third place respectively after the countback went their way.
SSV strategic manager Nick Mooney was thrilled with the event commenting ‘’this is the perfect introduction to golf for Victorian students in a safe and fun environment. Our partnership with Golf Victoria is an industry leader across sport and education, resulting in fantastic opportunities for Victorian students’’.
Click here for a full list of results and photos of the day