NSW Juniors Dominate Australian Amateur Golf
Not many 16 year old girls spend their free time on a golf course, chasing a little white ball around for hours at a time, but then Shelly Shin is not your average 16 year old girl. Last Sunday, the Concord Golf Club junior and three times Jack Newton Junior Golf Player of the Year was crowned the 2015 Australian Women’s Amateur Champion after an epic 8 & 7 win over former Jack Newton Junior Golf member and The Australian Golf Club member Lizzie Elmassian.
Shin adds the coveted national title to her growing resume of tournament victories including the Riversdale Cup, Queensland and Victorian Amateur Championships in 2014, as well as the Lake Macquarie Amateur earlier this month. These impressive performances saw Shin named a member of the Australian World Amateur Team alongside recently turned professional golfers Minjee Lee and Su-Hyun Oh. The girls combined brilliantly, which resulted in Australia claiming the Espirito Santo Trophy at the World Amateur Teams Championship in Japan for the first time since Katherine Kirk (nee Hull), Lindsey Wright, and Vicky Thomas (nee Uwland) won the title in 2002. To top it all off, just a couple of weeks ago Shin led the Australian Team to only its fifth victory in the Astor Trophy in Adelaide.
Not many amateur golfers have a resume this impressive, yet the Sydney school girl has achieved all this whilst only just old enough to get her learner drivers license. She is certainly a young lady that has achieved a great deal in her short career. And she is not the only NSW youngster excelling in the golfing world.
Fellow Golf Australia National Squad and Golf NSW Elite Squad Team member Cameron Davis etched his name on the Australian Men’s Amateur trophy at the same time. Davis, also a past JNJG member, has certainly taken his game to a whole new level in the past few years. Despite some disappointing finishes internationally in 2014 the Monash member closed the year being crowned the Victorian Amateur Champion.
It is players like Shin and Davis that are creating headlines across the country and Jack Newton Junior Golf is pleased to have been able to assist in the early development stages. The Australian Amateur Championships certainly showcased the talent that is currently thriving in NSW and in particular in our junior ranks. Two times Jack Newton Junior Golf Player of the Year Kevin Yuan (The Australian) made it to the Semi Finals before being knocked out by kiwi Tyler Hodge while 2014 NSW Women’s Amateur Champion and current JNJG member Doey Choi also made it into the top 32 female players. This is a growing trend amongst the junior ranks as players get better at a younger age, and shows the groundwork is being done in the early years of development by golf clubs across New South Wales.
In total there were more than 10 NSW players, all recent graduates of Jack Newton Junior Golf, who qualified for the match play section of the Australian Amateur. As more and more junior golfers show amateurs of all ages that they have arrived on the national stage, Jack Newton Junior Golf continue to support them through various coaching programs, offering high quality events and a dedicated development pathway which juniors are able to move along from beginner to the elite level. It is our belief that laying a solid foundation at an early age has helped these youngsters become the stars we see before us, and this groundwork will continue to provide Australian Champions for years to come.
