Q Golf - Official online magazine for Golf Queensland Summer 2012 | Page 6

Sawdust flies as Dingo golf rises after 30 years
by Tony Durkin

Royal Dingo Golf Club, two hours west of Rockhampton in Central
Queensland, is hopefully about to rise from the ashes – sawdust
greens and all.
The club closed its doors just on 30 years ago because of a lack of
patronage and the nine-hole course, positioned in the centre of
the local racecourse, died a natural death. But the Dingo Progress
Association is hell bent on resurrecting a major attraction for the
township, which boats a population of less than 100.
“We felt we needed to have a golf club in our town,” said Dingo
Progress Association president Mick Kaller.

“The sawdust can set quite hard, which makes the greens really fast
and difficult for putting,” he said.
“But when swept with a broom or scraped with a pipe, they can also
become fluffy and provide a totally different kind of surface. They
still hold well, as sand greens do, but hold even better when they are
fluffy.”
Negotiations are currently underway to have the club re-affiliated,
and in the meantime nine locals are maintaining a hole each, thanks
to the local council which donated a slasher.

“At a meeting about 12 months ago someone made the suggestion
that we should try and get the course back up and running, and it
started from there. Half a dozen of us have probably spent the best
part of the past three months getting the course back in order, and
we have already held two events.
“Whether we actually form the club again depends on the interest
from the locals. Hopefully we can muster 2o or so potential members,
which should make it viable.”
And because of a lack of water and the expense of obtaining sand, the
locals have decided the greens would be fashioned from sawdust.
“We have two sawmills in the town, and the sawdust was free. When
the course was operational previously we also had sawdust greens,
and apparently they were suitable,” Kaller explained.
Veteran Dingo golfer Allan Olive went further, describing them as ‘a
terrific challenge’.

Young Becky headed for greener pastures
by Tony Durkin

Becky Kay was ‘blown away’ when she realised that she had joined
such Australian golfing luminaries as Karrie Webb, Katherine Hull,
Adam Scott, Jason Day, Aaron Baddeley and Geoff Ogilvy as a member
of the Australian under 19 merit team.

Meyer said Becky reminded him of Minjee Lee at the same age. In July
16-year-old Lee became the first Australian to win the US Girls’ Junior
Championship.

She was even more excited when informed she may well be the
youngest golfer ever to make the team – boy or girl. And at 13, it is
highly probable the Gold Coast schoolgirl now holds that mantle,
a view expressed by David Seeley, national secretary of Australian
School Golf.
“Unfortunately our records, dating back to 1981 when the first team
was selected, do not register the age of the players. But I cannot recall
anyone younger being selected,” he said.
In the recent Australian under 19 championships in Perth the 13-yearold finished sixth in the individual scratch event and seventh in the
nett, and was a member of the winning Queensland team. A month
earlier she became the youngest player to win the Coolangatta-Tweed
Heads ladies championship in the 86-year history of the club.
Tony Meyer, Becky’s coach and head coach of Golf Queensland
and the Queensland Academy of Sport, says he wishes he had 100
students like her.
“She’s a tiny little girl with an amazing and unbelievably natural talent
for golf,” he said.
“But as she becomes stronger physically and develops this natural
talent further, I believe she has the ability to become a phenomenal
golfer. Her biggest challenge now is to manage her life as a budding
golfing champion and a teenage girl. Despite her unbelievable talent,
she still needs to be a kid.”

6 Q Golf Online Summer 2012

www.golfqueensland.org.au