Australia’s Special Olympic golfers are bringing home a pair of silver medals and so much more from Los Angeles.
Aside from their outstanding achievements in standing on the dais, Darren Tait and Kathryn Wilson both shone in the highest pressure environment they’ll likely face in their sporting careers.
Coach Jeremy Smith was ecstatic with both series performances with Canberran Tait and Queenslander Wilson dramatically slashing their best previous scores.
Tait, 47, playing in the level four nine-hole event, entered with a previous best score of 58.
So Smith was thrilled that in three of the four tournament rounds, Tait matched or bettered that mark with rounds of 58-61-56-54 for a 229 total that was just two outside the gold medal mark of Korean Gaeun Kim.
And not to be denied, Wilson matched those remarkable achievements in the level five 18-hole strokeplay event.
Wilson, who counts fellow Queenslanders Adam Scott, Karrie Webb and Jason Day among her heroes, had never shot better than 92 in a major competition.
So with extraordinary rounds of 89-83-86-84, she proudly took home silver with a total of 342 behind only Zimbabwe’s Tungamirai Mudyanadzo.
The Australian team fared superbly in Los Angeles with 76 athletes in 12 sports combining for an extraordinary haul of 23 gold, 19 silver and 18 bronze medals.
But, as evidenced by the Aussie golfing pair, perhaps even a grander achievement was the total of 15 “personal bests” among the team.