Joondalup’s Celine Chen and Josiah Edwards of Gosnells captured the Drummond Golf 54-Hole Junior Classic, played over the Margaret River, Collie and Bunbury Golf Club courses.
In the Boys section, Edwards trailed overnight leader Ollie Marsh, from Royal Fremantle, by six strokes heading into the final round. Starting from the 13th tee, he quickly made up ground with a birdie and when Marsh double-bogeyed both the 17th and 18th holes, the tournament was thrown wide open.
The pair stayed neck and next to the finish, both making birdies on the closing two holes – the par-five 11th and the par-four 12th.
With the scores tied, Marsh and Edwards entered a sudden-death playoff. They halved the par-three 10th hole, but Edwards’ birdie on the 11th was enough to claim the title.
Mount Lawley’s Ken Tianyi Gao finished two shots further back after carding a final-round 74, with Royal Perth’s Spencer Harrison and Royal Fremantle’s Mandeep Singh sharing fourth spot.
In the Girls section, overnight co-leader Chen, who teed off from the 3rd hole, got off to a fast start with two birdies in her first three holes. A double bogey on the par-three 8th brought her back to the field before she notched up another birdie on the par-five 9th.
Joondalup clubmate Mia Lawson and Mount Lawley pair Erina Tan and Valerie Khuu closed the gap when Chen dropped seven shots over a tricky seven-hole stretch, but a birdie on the closing hole, the par-five 2nd hole, was enough to give the WA Amateur Champion the win as Lawson and Tan could only manage bogeys.
In the end, Lawson finished one stroke back of Chen in second, with Tan and Khuu sharing third spot. Lakelands’ Kourtney Houston finished alone in fifth place.
The Drummond 54-Hole Junior Classic featured 67 of the state’s top junior players, while another 22 played in the Crunch&Sip Junior Tour segment.
Fuyu Yang, from Commonwealth Golf Club in Melbourne, Victoria, will be glad to have made the long trip over to Western Australia, as she walked away with the Best Nett prize. Another long-distance traveller was Zavier Broun, who came from Karratha Golf Club the far northern part of Western Australia.
