For the past 4 years our club has run successful Trainee Pro-Am events where we get the opportunity to play with some future stars.

Several of the Trainee- Pro’s have gone on to bigger and better things. For example, our own home-grown Trainee Pro Reanna Matthews and her partner, Ashley Blake are now  joint pro’s at Mooroopna Golf Club in the Goulburn Valley, and Reanna also plays on the Women’s PGA circuit.

Another Trainee-Pro that has played in our event (Josh and I played with him in our 2016 event) is a guy from Curlewis  Golf Club by the name of Deyen “Digger” Lawson. Lawson was the hot-shot in the trainee ranks in 2016, playing off a +7 handicap and having won 9 of the 10 Trainee-Pro events at the time he played Leongatha. He turned Pro only about a month after our event and since then he has played on the Asian, Chinese and Australasian circuits with some considerable success. He was 10 under after 2 rounds at the 2017 Victorian Open event at 13th Beach, and finished 2nd with 13 under in the 2017 Northern Territory PGA Championship. Yesterday, he finished equal 2nd in the New Zealand  PGA Championship at Palmerston North after having been tied for the lead after 3 rounds. He finished with 16 under the card. Other names in the event you would be familiar with included David Smail (NZ), Nick Flanagan, Peter Wilson and Stephen Leaney.

Clearly, the guy can play! I still recall his drives on our 15th and 17th holes where he cut the doglegs on both holes to put them close to the green on both occasions. Both were wonderful, audacious shots – but then again, what else would you expect from a hot-shot 20 something year old!

I look forward to next year’s event and suggest that you do too. It’s a great chance to get to see how good these guys and gals are, and how they play your course!

Peter Waters