From Tony Durkin
PENNANT LOSS: Headland’s A Grade Pennant team has been relegated to the knockout final of the 2025 Sunshine Coast/Glasshouse competition after a big loss on Sunday. Needing to beat defending Champion Caboolture to proceed directly to the final, Headland suffered its heaviest defeat of the season, going down 5½-1½ at Caloundra on Sunday. Adam Richards (3&1) was Headland’s only victor, with Jack Hourn squaring his match to give the team a half point. Beaten were Sean McGill (3&1) in his 100th Pennant match for the club, and Glen Walker (5&4), while Adam Rydwanski, Brad Butler and Shane Muller were each pipped 1-down in agonisingly close results. Ironically, Headland will meet Caboolture again next Sunday, at Woodford, with victory not only avenging Sunday’s loss, but elimination by the same team in last year’s semi-final. The winner will meet Mt Coolum – which beat fourth-placed Maroochy River on Sunday – in the 2025 Pennant final.
PLEASURE GOLF: Once a scratch marker who represented Headland in A Grade and Junior Pennants, a more mature Chris Weier now plays golf for the pleasure it brings. And he found enjoyment in abundance on Saturday when he won his first A Grade Monthly Medal in at least a dozen years. “It is the first time I have broken 80 since last year’s Club Championships, and it was a good feeling,” said Chris, who stopped playing for just on a decade after he and his wife moved to Cooroy because of work commitments. “My golf of late has been terrible, so having a much better round was really pleasing. Winning the Medal was a bonus.” Chris shot 76 from what he described as his ‘generous’ handicap of nine, for nett 67. His card revealed three birdies, nine pars, five bogeys and a double at the par-four fourth. “The highlight of the day was being able to inform my 11-year-old daughter, Billie-Mae, that I had won at golf. Every time I come home, she asks me ‘did you win today dad?’,” he revealed. “And until today, since she was born I have never been able to say yes.” David W Smith (also 67 nett) won the B Grade medal and Ian Harper (68) won C Grade.
SECOND MEDAL: On Saturday Kerry Longworth won her second Monthly Medal for 2025, but still says she has been playing ‘dreadfully’ for the past couple of years. And the contrast in scores indicates how much easier the course is playing since her victory in April. “Today I scored 69 nett. Four months ago, I won with 80 nett,” she divulged. “The course may be playing a lot easier, and the scoring better, but it is still really tough with the new bunkers.” And the winning score could have been so much better for the 27-year member had one of those bunkers not raised its ugly head on the par-three 18th. “I found the bunker on the right, and finished with an eight,” she bemoaned. Kerry’s round started superbly, and the front nine of five-over 41 was highlighted by successive birdies at five and six for the 26-handicapper. “I was absolutely thrilled with that, but the back nine was something of a shocker,” she said, following her 54 shots coming home. But for Kerry, who played from as low as 17 ‘when we were all a little younger’, can now add successive birdies to her other Headland highlights – three holes-in-one, as well as a fourth eagle. Josie Ryan, with 86, is gradually finding some lost form, and returned the best gross score on Saturday.
IT’S TEX TIME: July is usually the time Aussies start thinking about filing their annual tax returns, but for former Mooloolaba restaurateur Tex Teixeira it has been ‘consolidating’ time. “After a fairly major disruption in my life, I have had to make some changes, and my golf has suffered,” Tex revealed after winning Wednesday’s Medley Single Stableford in A Grade. The 18-year Headland member, who owned restaurants on Mooloolaba Esplanade for most of those years, recently bought a vending machine business as he took ‘a step back’ from the hectic hospitality lifestyle. “Wednesday was just my fourth round of golf in four months, and my Stableford scores have been 21, 24 and 36 before my winning 38 on Wednesday,” said the 58-year-old after penning two birdies, nine pars and seven bogeys in his round of 77. “It has been a long time since I have broken 80, but hopefully now that all is settled on the work front, I can continue that form.” An ex-pat South African, Tex has been handicapped as low as four at Headland, with a best round of 75. Tex is the youngest member – and lowest-handicapped – of the Old Goats (Order of Late Developing Golfers Optimistically Approaching Terminal Senility) group which plays each Wednesday, but with more time on his hands he now hopes to play on weekends as well. Recently-retired butcher Greg Wareham (39 points) won B Grade on Wednesday, and Roscoe King (39) won C Grade.
MERGED NINES: After months of trying, Liz Dunford has solved that baffling golfing challenge of blending two nines together when she scored 39 points – 20 and 19 – to post the best score in Thursday’s Single Stableford for Women. “For too long of late it has been a tale of two nines,” said a relieved Liz after winning Division One, and pocketing $75 from sponsor Sunlife Skin Cancer Care Centre. “I thought I was due for a win and, thankfully, today I finally got my act together.” The recently-retired nurse, who joined Headland 17 years ago when she and husband Tony moved from Forbes, added ‘I have been close to a win lately, but felt I was just hanging around and not going those few steps further’. And one of her major breakthroughs came on the par threes, which she said had been ‘terrible’ of late. The 2023 B Grade Matchplay Champion and winner of the Women’s Medal of Medals the same year, Liz parred five, fourteen and eighteen, and birdied the eighth. On a day when scores were much improved, Ali Lamond won Division Two with 38 points, and Lee Heseltine won Division Three on the same score. Steve Nash (42 points), won the Men’s event.
ANNABEL WINS: Headland’s Annabel Harris has won the Queensland Senior Amateur nett in her age flight (65-69 years), completed at Hervey Bay Golf Club on Wednesday. The 54-hole tournament attracted some of Australia’s best men and women senior golfers, with No.1 world-rated Senior Amateur, Victoria’s Nadene Gole (75,76,77) winning the gross by five shots. Kingaroy’s Graham Hourn (70,73,70), the father of Headland A Grade Pennant team member Jack Hourn, won the Men’s title. Annabel (88,89,87) finished a very creditable 12th in the Open event. The victory added to an already stellar 2025 by Annabel, who finished runner-up to Lisa Ramen in the Club Championship, was beaten in the semi-final of the Matchplay, runner-up in the two-day Maryborough Senior Classic and has claimed three Monthly Medals at Headland.
NEIL, FINALLY: After being the butt of jokes about being the second-best golfer in the family, Neil Oxley has broken through for his first win in ‘maybe as long as 12 months’. Neil (GA handicap 13), has had a dry run since being joint winner of the 2024 Headland Handiskins event, but his wife Vicki (25) has been enjoying a golden run of late. “Yes, I have had lots of comments about Vicki’s success, and my lack thereof,” he said, after winning Sunday’s Medley Single Stableford with 38 points. “I have seemingly had a million recent putts that have not dropped, while today the opposite was the case. It was good to have my game finally come together after a lean trot.” Neil penned three birdies, five pars, eight bogeys and two doubles on his winning card, snaring victory in the field of 56 by two points. Vicki, who did not play on Sunday, has recorded a win and two seconds in the past month.
MARK IS BACK: A post-retirement goal to enjoy his golf has finally come to fruition for ex-public servant Mark Beswick, who joined Headland back in 2020 and won at his first attempt. “I had a big smile on my face when I finished yesterday,” said Mark who teamed with mate Stewart Douglas to win Tuesday’s Medley Fourball Best Ball Stableford. The Fourball partners, who have played regularly for the past 18 months, scored 45 points to win, with Mark’s contribution an impressive 29 points. “Stewart said that even when he scored well on a hole, I was on the card before him,” quipped Mark. But the smile he displayed on Tuesday has been missing for a long while. Suffering a chronic back injury after falling from a ladder, Mark finally succumbed and underwent surgery in February, which has proved successful. “I had my fall just after I started playing golf here following 26 years out of the game, and I was always medicated because of the pain. It feels so great now to be pain free,” he said. Mark won the 2020 Vets two-day Eclectic Tournament at his first Headland outing as a club member, but has since endured a long drought.
WEEKLY RESULTS:
Tuesday, Medley Fourball Best Ball Stableford (116 players) – Mark Beswick and Stewart Douglas (45 points), Nev Kenzler and Stephen Woolcott (45), Graeme Warne and Mal Galletly (44).
Wednesday, Medley Single Stableford Fourball Best Ball Stableford – sponsors, Young Doctors – (234 players) – A Grade, Tex Teixeira (38 points), Ryan Tomlinson (37), Tony Pattinson (36); B Grade, Greg Wareham (39), Chris Wilson (38), Bruce Reid (38); C Grade, Roscoe King (38), Chris Southern (38), Graham Cartledge (38).
Fourball Best Ball Stableford – Mark Ludbrooke and Errol Greiner (45 points), Steve Blampied and Greg Wareham (45), Mark Gersbach and Don Harris (45).
Thursday, Single Stableford, Women – sponsors, Sunlife Skin Cancer Care Centre – (118 players) – Division One, Liz Dunford (39 points), Lisa Ramen (36), Lynn Deacon (36); Division Two, Ali Lamond (38), Rhonda Biggs (38), Jenny Pirini (37); Division Three, Lee Heseltine (38), Penny Cooper (37), Christine Hall (36).
Men (81 players) – Steve Nash (42 points), Ian Robinson (41), Malcolm Woods (41).
Saturday, Monthly Medal – sponsor, Ryan Tomlinson, Century 21 on Duporth – Women (22 players) – Kerry Longworth (69 nett), Gwen Nancarrow (70), Josie Ryan 71); best gross, Josie Ryan (86).
Men (161 players) – A Grade, Chris Weier (67 nett), Matt Prince (70), Brian Callaghan (70); B Grade, David W Smith (67), Huki Matenga (70), Matthew Short (71); C Grade, Ian Harper (68), Steven Makin (69), John Cleary (70); best gross, Adam Richards (72).
Single Stableford (66 players) – Division One, Patrick Walsh (41 points), Tony Coad (40), Justin Walsh (37); Division Two, Ben Laycock (42), Peter Barbour (35), Peter Wood (34).
Juniors, Nine-hole Stroke, Matthew Bothma (42), Finn Darlison, (45), Max Faulkner (47), Peter Hall (48).
Sunday, Medley Single Stableford (56 players) – Neil Oxley (38 points), Jack Swanepoel (36), Mike Williams (35).
