Tasmania Chemist Golf Club News

Seven Mile Beach 15 November 2025

We were indeed privileged to be able to be able to play this wonderful new course before the official opening and thanks to Greg and Will Kay for their efforts in facilitating access. It was really wonderful to see so many of our friends who made the effort to come over from the big island, we trust it was worth your while, and we were treated to a fantastic day weather wise, an oddity in our thoroughly miserable spring this year.

We had 68 players in all, 18 locals and 50 visitors. To put that in perspective our three other events this year have attracted “crowds” of 6 plus 1 visitor, 11 + 3 and 11, and certainly this was far and away our biggest local event in my memory.

Also good to see some of our local occasional players join the hard core group for the day and we hope you are inspired to play more golf, your membership would be most welcome. One such player has joined and paid his $33 subs, we welcome Matt Pilkington to the TCGC.

Thanks also to our sponsors represented by Peter O’Brien from TWCM and Lou Skantzos from Guild Insurance, both companies have been long term and generous sponsors of the ACGA and the member state associations. I mentioned to Lou the tremendous response we got and he quite rightly pointed out that we are all mad and would go anywhere for a decent golf course, especially a new one.

Thanks also to Greg for organising dinner at the Tasmanian Club, we originally had a local restaurant booked but they were unable to accommodate our final number. It is a beautiful building with an interesting history and I trust that all those that stayed there were very comfortable. The food offering was excellent, as was the wine which was flowing perhaps a little too freely! I imagine there may have been a sore head or two on Sunday morning.

Congratulations to our winners on the day, Marg Bond with 34 points was the best of the ladies followed by Virgina Davies with 32 and our Tas president Joe Vaszocz was the best of the men with 36 points with Matthew Pollack second with 35.

We plan to return at the same time in ’26 and our schedule for next year will be available soon on the TCGC section of the VCGC website. Briefly it is planned for Ratho Farm in May, Barnbougle in July, up the East Coast in October (probably Freycinet and Bicheno, tbc) and 7MB as mentioned.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

Chris

TCGC Report, Barnbougle and Oatlands

The TCGC held the annual Barnbougle trip in July, and as is more often than not, were greeted by perfect calm winter weather and cloudless skies. As Mike Clayton once wrote in one of the golf magazines Barnbougle in winter is one of Australian golf’s best kept secrets and we are indeed fortunate to be able to visit such a wonderful facility regularly.
We welcomed three visitors, our regular guest Plurals and first time visitor from Sydney, Tiffany, as well as her mother from South Korea, Beth, most likely our first ever overseas player. We were also pleased to welcome a new local member, Boly Chea. As ever the three courses were all in top condition and the restaurants superb. A total of 14 players teed it up at least once over the three days and day one at Bougle Run saw Stuart Hughes returning the best score, 7 over off the stick, good enough to win both the scratch and handicap for the men and Tiffany having the best ladies score. New boy Boly cleaned all the men up on day 2 at Lost Farm with 34 points, congratulations Boly and we hope to see you at our events regularly. Beth was the best of the ladies with an excellent 39 points. The final day at Barnbougle Dunes was tied between Oliver and Chris with 31 each and Tiffany backed up with a wonderful 36 points. Congratulations to our new vice captain Oliver on winning the David Dixon Memorial trophy which is awarded to the best Tasmanian aggregate score for Barnbougle Dunes and Lost Farm, a pair of 31s being good enough to finish two clear of Stuart. I am very pleased to report (without the least hint of bias!) that the North vs South trophy has returned to the bottom end of the island, 27.5 to 26.9.

September 14th saw us 11 players travel to the midlands town of Oatlands, once home to the now defunct Tasmanian B grade championship. It is a lovely little 9 hole country course, no bunkers but plenty of water, set as it is near Lake Dulverton. And only $20! Welcome to two more new members, Chris Edwards and Rhys Jones, we hope to see both of you again regularly too. Rhys turned up with a bottle of his moonshine, good idea on a coolish day, but the jury is still out on whether he is a caring and sharing gentleman or a potential mass murderer. In a departure from the norm we played 9 holes in the morning, adjourned for lunch at the nearby Callington Mill, then played another 9. I can report that only 4 players returned a better score second time round, you would think that having had a look at the course the scoring would generally improve. I was one of the shameful 7 by the way. Congratulations to our birthday boy Rob Davies who played a sensational 2 over second nine to win the day with 38 points from the luckless Stuart who was second again with 37 and Harvey 36

Next event is at 7 Mile Beach next month, - sorry, but if you haven’t booked it is booked out.

Chris Johnson, Captain