Date: September 10, 2012
Author: Golf Australia

Vale: Burtta Cheney MBE

Golf Australia would like to extend its deepest sympathies to the family and friends of one of Australian golf&aposs true pioneers, Miss Burtta Cheney MBE, who passed away on Saturday evening. A pioneer of women’s golf, 95-year-old Miss Cheney enjoyed a long and illustrious career as a player, administrator and the founder of junior girls golf in Victoria. In 1986 the Australian Girls&apos Interstate Teams Matches competitors began playing for the Burtta Cheney Cup – dedicated to Miss Cheney&aposs decades of work in developing junior girls&apos golf. Some highlights of her achievements and contributions include: Australian Champion 1957, runner up 1937; Commonwealth Tournament Team 1959 and Team Captain 1963; Tasman Cup team six times and Captain five times; Victorian Amateur Champion three times; Victorian and South Australian Junior Girls Champion, Victorian state team player fifteen times; Huntingdale Golf Club Champion eighteen times; Team member and Captain of Huntingdale s pennant team for over twenty years. In 1937, Burtta became the Victorian Ladies Golf Union s youngest delegate before being elected President and honoured as a life member of the organisation in 1983. Burtta s enthusiasm for golf translated into the introduction of the Anglesea Girls Golf Camps which commenced in 1966 and are still conducted today over forty-five years later. Burtta Cheney s biography A Life in Golf was released in 2010. Funeral details will be advised as they become available. Click here to download the History and Honour Roll for the Australian Girls&apos Interstate Teams Matches (for the Burtta Cheney Cup)