Racecourse Road, Kyabram Vic 3620 |
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KYABRAM PARKLAND GOLF CLUB INC
Annual Tournament
Saturday October 6th to Sunday October 14th 2012
2012 Victorian Par 3 Amateur Championships
Saturday 9th & Sunday 10th June
DOWNLOADS
2012 ENTRY FORM (pdf) plus terms and conditions of entries
2012 ENTRY FORM (docx)
2012 Brochure for any further information please contact us
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Win a surprise for Schneider by Brian Meldrum
Former Victorian state squad member Nathan Schneider rolled in a three metre par putt on the final hole of the Banksia Victorian Par 3 Amateur Championship, oblivious to the fact that he’d just become the 2011 champion.
It was only when he’d added up his score and compared it with the others in his group, that the 39-year old maintenance engineer from Wodonga realised he’d won Kyabram Parkland’s 54-hole feature by a single shot.
“I had no idea,” he said later. “I pretty well gave up after I double bogeyed the 13th.” There, Schneider missed the green to the left on the 196 metre hole, bladed his second shot across the putting surface, chipped on but then missed the putt.
The previous day, in the first two rounds, he’d played very solidly for rounds of 54 and 55 to be one over par going into the final round, giving him a one shot lead over Albury golfer John Barfoot.
Five shots back in third place was Victorian state player Terry Vogel, with state juniors James Bannan and Jack Sandic a further two shots in arrears.
The final round began on a brilliant Sunday morning in perfect conditions but the two at the top of the leader board made heavy weather of it, both dropping four shots through the front nine. Bannon dropped one shot in eight holes, but birdied the ninth to get within three of the lead.
While the double bogey on the 13th had, in Schneider’s mind, put him out of the hunt, the fact was he’d fallen back into a tie for the lead with Barfoot, with Bannon two shots back.
On the 133 metre 15th Schneider again missed the green and failed to get up and down, leaving Barfoot a shot up with three holes to play. Bannon now was now within two shots of the lead but time was running out.
The youngster made his bid for the championship on the 177 metre 16th, putting a brilliant tee shot close to the hole and making the birdie putt. Schneider made par but Barfoot ran up a bogey, leaving all three players tied at nine over par for the championship.
Bannon and Barfoot parred the 17th but Schneider produced a flash of brilliance when he chipped in from just off the 17th green for a birdie two, putting him a shot up. Not that he knew.
“Even with the birdie I still reckoned I was one or two shots behind,” he said, and when he missed the green on the 142 metre 18th, then chipped to three metres, any thought of winning was non-existent.
Barfoot knew though, and when it was all over probably wished he’d told Schneider the state-of-play as he was lining up his three-metre par putt. “He said he reckons if he’d told me I probably would have missed it,” Schneider laughed.
Bannon had a realistic chance of forcing a play-off when he hit his tee shot on the last to within four metres of the flag, but his birdie putt just missed, while Barfoot made a regulation par.
Schneider finished with a seven-over-par 61, the same final round score as last year’s play-off winner, Andrew Kane, for a three-round total of 170. Bannon shot a one-over-par final round 55, and Barfoot a 61, to finish tied second on 171, while Vogel shot a final round 58 to secure fourth place on 172.
Back in 2007 Schneider, then playing out of Howlong, won the New South Wales Country Championship, but the following year joined Myrtleford and was a member of the Victorian state squad in 2009-2010.
He’s become a big fan of the Par-3 championship after having first played it in 2008. “A lot of people don’t like it because it does their heads in, but I love it. It’s a real challenge, but it’s also fun,” Schneider said.
Local champion David Cartwright played solidly to finish tied seventh, but his moment of glory came in a shoot-out for set of car tyres, which went begging as a hole-in-one prize across the tournament.
A dozen players’ names were pulled out of a hat for the shoot-out on the 142 metre 18th, but Cartwright put paid to the opposition very early in the piece, and had the Parkland members cheering, when “an easy seven iron” pitched a foot from the hole and came to rest a metre behind it.
2009 Mens Par 3 Championship
