Abbie Teasdale set a course record in a dominant display to win the Albany Classic women’s crown, while Jordan Doull won a playoff to become men’s champion.
Buoyed by a number of GolfWA State Squad members, the field for the Albany Classic was one of its strongest in years, and players needed to be at their best to deal with the high winds and lightning-fast greens on the classic links layout.
You don’t get to the top of the amateur game in WA without being able to handle breezy conditions, though, and that mantra was ably proved by reigning WA Women’s Amateur Champion Abbie Teasdale, who left the rest of the field in her wake.
The Royal Fremantle golfer was the runaway winner of the women’s competition, leading the field home by an amazing 13 strokes with most of the damage done during her stunning opening round.
There, playing in the weekend’s worst weather conditions, Teasdale blitzed to a course record 68 (four under par), eclipsing Ericka Jayalatka’s previous best of 69, which was set back in 1993.
This left Teasdale with an almost unassailable 10-shot lead going into the final round and she refused to let up, posting a closing 73 to win by a gargantuan 13 strokes from Sophie Williams (Mount Lawley GC), with Sasha Hofman (Gosnells GC) a further three back in third.
“It feels good to be able to get the course record in those conditions,” Teasdale told GolfWA. “I didn’t even play my best as I’m currently going through a lot of changes in my swing, so I just went out there with no expectations, tried to hit greens and eventually some putts rolled in.”
Things were much closer in the men’s event, which boiled down to a straight shoot-out between GolfWA High Performance athletes Jordan Doull (Mount Lawley) and Michael Hanrahan Smith (Cottesloe).
Hanrahan Smith’s opening round of 71 was the only sub-par round by the men for the entire tournament, leaving him two clear of Doull going into the final 18. Doull, however, is a hard man to shake and so it proved on a nervy second day.
Doull was steadiness personified on his way to posting a second consecutive 73 and, while Hanrahan Smith couldn’t match his first-round excellence, he still stood over a short putt on the 18th that would have given him a one-stroke victory. Alas, it slid by, sending the contest to a playoff where Doull prevailed on the second extra hole with a typically solid par.
“The conditions on the first day at Albany were pretty brutal,” Doull told GolfWA. “It was challenging in that if you didn’t hit the right shot and trust what the wind was doing, you could put yourself quite a bit out of position. The greens down there were in incredible condition but with the way the wind was blowing, you had to factor that into putts on a number of holes.”
One of the favourites for next week’s WA Amateur Championships, Doull says his game in is great shape to make a run for the state’s biggest tournaments.
“I’m very happy with where my game is,” he added. “I’ve stuck to my plan and, with what I have learned from playing over in the Eastern states in the last couple of months, I’m really looking forward to the big tournaments ahead.”
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