Indooroopilly Golf Club in Brisbane hosted the country’s leading junior golfing talent last week with the Australian Junior Amateur Championship wrapping up Friday. After practice rounds were held on Monday, the tournament teed off on Tuesday on the club’s Tennyson (formerly ‘Gold’) and Coot-tha (formerly ‘Red’) nines which comprised the championship course for the tournament.
 
Having got the through ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred relatively unscathed, Indooroopilly, like many courses in southeast Queensland, copped plenty of rain in recent times, including more than 100mm in the days leading up to tournament week. That resulted in plenty of work for course manager Ben Grylewicz’s team to reinstate bunkers with the course presenting superbly despite some challenging conditions.
 
The couchgrass greens (a mix of TifEagle and 328) were cut by a team of five with walk-behinds at 2.8mm and rolled. Ahead of Tuesday’s opening round greens were double cut and rolled, with a single cut and double roll each morning for the remaining three rounds. The fairways, cut by a team of four in a 50/50 pattern, were at 9mm. Due to the wet weather last week Indooroopilly groundstaff were unable to get out and cut roughs, however, the slightly longer grass had the unintended benefit of providing some wonderful definition to the shortcut couchgrass fairways according to assistant course manager Dean Hardman (CSTM).
 
“The course came up really well and we got a lot of good feedback from the players and their parents who have been out here for the week,” says Hardman. “The crew did a great job and it was nice to be back preparing the course for a tournament, especially after all the wet weather we’ve had recently. And the members were loving it too as they knew what the course was like after the cyclone came through.”

Both the boys and girls titles were decided in dramatic circumstances this afternoon. Kiwi Cooper Moore, who shot a final round 4-under 68 to finish at 5-under, prevailed on the third playoff hole over Dubbo’s Cooper Giddings who had earlier signed for a blistering 7-under final round. Moore, the current New Zealand Amateur champion, holed a bunker shot for birdie on the third playoff hole to claim the title. Royal Adelaide’s Raegan Denton, who started the final round in fourth spot, needed just one playoff hole to defeat Avondale's Rachel Lee, rolling in a 22-foot birdie putt. The juniors now head across the other side of the Brisbane River next week to Brookwater Golf and Country Club (superintendent Matt Legge) which will host the Australian Junior Interstate Teams Matches starting Monday. 

Photos courtesy of Shaun Teng