The GolfWA Junior Pennants season came to a close yesterday with divisional titles going to teams from Royal Fremantle, Gosnells, The Vines, Mount Lawley and WAGC.
The Girls Division 1 title playoff proved to be the clash of the day as Mount Lawley 1 and Gosnells 1 played out a nailbiting decider. Having won all their matches in previous rounds – including a 5-0 routing of Gosnells in Round 1 – defending champions Mount Lawley went in as favourites but the match hung in the balance with a series of close encounters.
Gosnells’ number 1 Jorja Hinson-Tolchard claimed a 5&4 win over Erina Tan, while Zoe-Grace Ong edged out Ruby Cotton 2&1 to put Gosnells two points up with three matches to play. Narrow wins for Mount Lawley’s Isabella Leniartek and Valerie Khuu over Nariko McDonnell and Halia Edwards respectively levelled the match, leaving Mount Lawley’s Amanda Gann and Gosnells’ Heather-Grace Ong going head-to-head for the title.
The two could not be separated over 18 holes, leading to a sudden-death playoff for the title as teammates, family members and a host of spectators looked on. Unfortunately for Heather-Grace, she found a greenside bunker with her approach to the first playoff hole, while Valerie hit the green in regulation and putted out for par. Despite an excellent recovery, Heather-Grace just missed her par putt to hand victory to Mount Lawley.
Things were similarly tense in Girls’ Division 2, where WAGC needed to beat table-topping Royal Fremantle to pinch the title – a feat they pulled off with an impressive 3.5-1.5 victory. Meanwhile, Gosnells 3 claimed the Division 3 championship after besting the previously unbeaten Mandurah 3-1 in the final.
Mount Lawley’s team of Amanda Gan, Ruby Cotton, Isabella Leniartek, Erina Tan and Valerie Khuu
Royal Freo, Gosnells and The Vines secure Boys’ titles
Royal Fremantle 1 and Gosnells 1 faced off for the Boys’ Division 1 title and it was the Freo team who held strong to post a 4-1 victory that earned them their first top-tier Pennants title since 2016. Their player roster of Kloden Brown, Tyler Chi, Rocco Cucchiara, Ben Kivelhan, Ollie Marsh, Mandeep Singh and Kane Litterick went unbeaten throughout the tournament, winning four and halving one of their five matches.
Three teams were still in contention for the Division 2 crown going into the final day, but it was The Vines who closed it out with a 5-0 win over nearest rivals South West 1 – a match much closer than the final score suggested. Of note, South West’s Jasper Edwards hit a hole-in-one although ultimately lost his match 2&1 to Dante Dampies. Meanwhile, Gosnells wrapped up both the Division 3 and Division 4 competitions with their second and third teams claiming emphatic respective wins over Mount Lawley 2 and Mandurah.
View all the day’s results and the closing tables here.
All in all, it was a magnificent five weeks of golf across all seven divisions, with high standards of play and sportsmanship in evidence throughout and more than 200 juniors competing over the course of the championship. Thanks to all players, managers families and host venues for making 2023 another blockbuster year for Junior Pennants.
Boys’ Junior Pennants title winners
Division 1: Royal Fremantle 1 (Kloden Brown, Tyler Chi, Rocco Cucchiara, Ben Kivelhan, Ollie Marsh, Mandeep Singh, Kane Litterick)
Division 2: The Vines 1 (Nick Baleta, Dante Dampies, Cole Fewster, Ethan Hews, Riley Schafer, Liam Sullivan)
Division 3: Gosnells 2 (Ty Cleland, Shayne Lumsden, Steele Maxwell, Brodie McLean, Connor Pearson, Mahir Ramji, Blake Wager)
Division 4: Gosnells 3 (Isaac Low, Steele Maxwell, Mahir Ramji, Kai Scott, Owen Spedding, Nathan Wee, Sean Wirth)
Girls’ Junior Pennants title winners
Division 1: Mount Lawley 1 (Ruby Cotton, Amanda Gan, Valerie Khuu, Isabella Leniartek, Erina Tan)
Division 2: WAGC (Sofia Abrahams, Kaela Barnes, Heidi Pearce, Jiayi Teng, Rosie Tonts, Jade Williams, Zerlina Xu)
Division 3: Gosnells 3 (YiShan Li, Nalynn Kim, Lindsy Ong, Ruby Stone, Leann Yeoh, Lindsay Grace, Sharanya Mohan)
We weren’t able to get photos of all the winning teams for our gallery below, so please send your photos of the winning teams to marketingofficer@golfwa.org.au and we’ll add them in. To view gallery images, click on or touch the image and slide to the left.
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