World Schools Golf  - Asia Pacific Challenge
Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia • April 2012

88 players from Namibia, Adelaide, Melbourne, Auckland, Whangarei, Christchurch, Dunedin, Golden Bay, Tauranga, Cambridge and Timaru contested the Asia-Pacific/World Schools Golf Challenge held on the Mornington Peninsula south of Melbourne.

A variety of conditions proved a challenge for the golfers during the four rounds. The four host courses St Andrews Beach, Eagle Ridge and the two Moonah courses (Legends and Open) were in world-class condition and as a result were a hard but fair test of golf.

From the 15 degrees that greeted them on Tuesday morning to the balmy 26 degrees on the last day the players revelled in the conditions and the chance to play on golf courses rated far and wide as world class.

Previous Challenges have seen local teams feature strongly in the results. This time Melbourne school, Haileybury College featured well in all categories.

Lillie Callow won the girls individual net and gross competitions. Their mixed team won the net and were second in the gross. In the boys teams the Haileybury number one team were second in both categories.

The boys team gross was won by Whangarei Boys by eleven shots from Haileybury and Auckland Grammar third.

The nett competition saw Bay of Plenty’s Otumoetai College number one team come first well ahead of Haileybury and once again Auckland Grammar finishing third.

The consistency of the Auckland Grammar and Haileybury number one teams was very commendable.

The boys individual competitions saw Matt Morris from St Peters win both categories in division one. Division two had Luken Chamberlain (Golden Bay High) winning the net and Bailey Watson from Haileybury prevailing in the gross.

Matt Scott (St Peters) won both categories in division three and his schoolmate Constantyn TenCate did the same in division four.

The week was capped off with a dinner/prize-giving at Rosebud Country Club with local MP and State Minister of Education, Martin Dickson, presenting the prizes.

There was a lot of discussion between schools regarding the WSGC event being held in Thailand next year and it seems that several of the schools are already planning their trip next year.