ONCE each year Reon Weir dons the family’s traditional tartan and attends the annual Scotch Day at Noosa Springs – combining his lifelong pride in the Weir heritage with his newer love of the game of golf.
To date, his rewards have been modest – a prize last year for the best dressed golfer being about his greatest achievement.
But better things are in store – at least if his performance in Saturday’s Noosa Springs stableford competition is anything to go by.
Playing on a course that has recovered remarkably well from the recent floods, Reon played one of the rounds of his life, tallying 44 points and winning the event by three points.
Not bad for a retired power industry project manager who didn’t even take up the game until 10 years ago – long after he’d made the decision to relocate to the Sunshine Coast and make Noosa his home.
He puts his success down to having ‘a good day’ and ‘sinking a few putts’, but you don’t notch up 44 points purely by accident.
Reon moved to Noosa more than 30 years ago, but didn’t discover golf until he was introduced to it by a friend a decade ago.
He joined Noosa Springs and had lessons with Jimmy Douris, who’s now the teaching professional at Noosa Golf Club.
Reon was a quick learner and, within a few years, was captaining Noosa Springs’ B grade pennant team.
“I’ve missed the last year or two, but I’m getting ready for the upcoming pennant season,” said Reon, who played on Saturday from a 14 handicap.
Reon has spent the past few years helping his son Hayden establish Seabourne Distillery, whose quality gins and aperitifs have quickly gained a reputation for the boutique Noosaville establishment.
He plays golf two or three times a week and, otherwise, his passion is cooking – an activity perhaps influenced by his cousin, Pamela Clark, the legendary food editor of Women’s Weekly during a career which spanned a half century.
“I’m not in her class, of course, but I love cooking,” he said. “My favourite dish is roast pork.”
Reon says a love of cooking runs in the Weir family. His brother Graham, for example, is a multiple scone baking champion at the Royal Sydney Show.
Bowditch dips toe in the water
STEVEN Bowditch, the complex Noosa star who, like a meteor, blazed across the world golf stage a decade ago before spectacularly crashing and burning, made a tentative return to the game this week when he lined up in the Louisiana Open on the US’s Korn Ferry Tour.
Bowditch hadn’t competed on any tour since 2020, when he played five Korn Ferry Tour events – missing the 36-hole cut in every one.
Once rated as high as 54 on the Official World Rankings and a member of the International team in the 2015 Presidents Cup, Bowditch’s golf career has been remarkable for its dizzying highs and lamentable lows.
Bowditch’s life changed in 2005 when he won the Jacobs Creek Open in Adelaide. The tournament was co-sanctioned with the US’s Nationwide Tour and the money he won helped the former Noosa junior into fourth place on the tour’s money list, earning him a card on the US PGA Tour in 2006.
That didn’t go well. He played 22 events, missed the cut in all but two, and was tossed back onto the Nationwide Tour.
He got a second chance on the PGA Tour when, in 2010, he won the Soboba Golf Classic and his end-of-year standings were good enough to earn another chance on the world’s richest tour.
He was runner-up in the Greenbrier Classic in 2013, then won the Texas Open in 2014 and the Byron Nelson Classic in 2015 – victories that gained him starts in the Masters and the PGA. And, as his rating rose, he also gained starts in the British and US Opens.
But the glory days were brief.
In the 2016-17 season, he missed 25 of 27 cuts and again lost his playing privileges on the US Tour. He played seven events on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2018, missing the cut every time, before discovering the reason for constant pain in his back.
In 2019 Bowditch underwent spinal fusion surgery – the same procedure that cured Tiger Woods’ back problems – and returned to the Korn Ferry Tour in 2020. A series of poor results led to him calling it quits in July.
That was the last time Bowditch had played before this week’s comeback.
I’d love to be able to report a triumphant return but, sadly, rounds of 77 and 75 – made up of six birdies, but including just too many bogeys and even a double-bogey – led to yet another missed cut.
But Bowditch – still only 38, happily married with a five-year-old daughter and free of the depression that plagued him for years – is nothing if not a fighter, and looks to the future with confidence. He’ll be back again.
Queensland’s golf managers visit Noosa
DEALING with courses still impacted by floods kept some of the teams away, but 60 of Queensland’s golf club managers gathered at Noosa Springs last week for a chance to get together and play one of the state’s premier courses.
The Queensland division of the national Golf Managers Association regularly stages such events, usually attended by managers and board members, who discuss business and become familiar with different courses and clubs.
They play a team competition based on the combined scores of two pairs – either a manager and a board members, or two board members – from each club. This time the winning team was from Oxley Golf Club.
The event was sponsored by Club Car, whose CEO Colin Sergis attended.
Mark Orloff, of Golf Industry Central, who organised the day said the course played well and everybody was delighted to be out and about after the recent heavy rain.
Club competitions
NOOSA
Monday, 14 March
Women’s stableford: Michelle Greenwood 35, Tracey Frawley 33; 9-hole stableford: Ann Tummon 19, Jenny McDougall 17.
Tuesday, 15 March
Men’s stableford: A grade – Craig Strudwick 41, Ryan Mulder 39, Michael Nassereddin 38c/b, Darren Wylie 38; B grade – Terry Fitzgerald 41c/b, Marcus Edwards 41, Bruce Davidson 37c/b, Gary Tye 37c/b; C grade – Grant Evans 43, Neil Bickley 41, Billy McNally 38c/b, Kevin Richter 38c/b.
Thursday, 17 March
Women’s stableford: A grade – Cindy Lawson 39, Lani McDowall 37c/b; B grade – Trish Eldridge 35c/b, Barbara Daly 35; C grade – Margaret Smith 40, Janice Abey 39c/b.
Saturday, 19 March
Men’s 4-ball aggregate stableford: Brad Edwards & Joseph Barbaro 78, Damian Jopkins & John Bennett 74, Shane Dunn & Dean Jeffrey 73; women’s: Orawan Millar & Paula Jeffrey 62.
NOOSA SPRINGS
Monday, 14 March
Men’s stableford: Greg Taylor 39, Paul Liddy 38c/b, Peter Catchlove 38; women’s: Lin Stafford 36, Kerry Castleman 35, Leisha McMenamin 34.
Tuesday, 15 March
Men’s stableford: Martin Scollon 37, Tony Carabetta 34, John Taylor 32.
Wednesday, 16 March
Men’s stableford: Glenn Sunderland 39, Rob Probert 38, John Chandler 37c/b; women’s: Judy Buss 36c/b, Dee Pugh 36, Sarah Bate 35c/b.
Thursday, 17 March
Men’s stableford (black tees): Simon Cotton 33, Michael O’Connor 32, Tony Carabetta 29c/b.
Saturday, 19 March
Men’s stableford: Reon Weir 44, Ross Cooke 41, Terry Gee 38c/b; women’s: Barbara Sweeney 37, Barbara Stott 36c/b, Sunday Moore 36.
Sunday, 20 March
Men’s stableford: David McMartin 36, David Wrigley 35c/b, Daniel Hurst 35.
COOROY
Wednesday, 16 March
Vets four-ball Split 6s: Ross Maloney, Michael Lunney, Cam Darby & Steve Paice 86, Tony Atkins, Terry Magill, Jim Henderson & Grant Smallacombe 85, Bruce Otto, Matt Saunders, Gary Menyweather 83, Darryl Ayers 83.
