By Peter Owen
The 15th hole at Royal Lytham and St Annes, the famous links course on the coast of north-western England, is a fiendishly difficult 464 yard par four. But for the 1994 British Senior Open, as a concession to the age of the contestants, it was made a par five.
In that iconic event, the third in a row to be played at the celebrated golf course, Noosa’s George Bell, making a rare international tournament appearance, did something quite outrageous on this challenging hole.
He pummelled his drive long and straight, then reached for an eight iron with which he dispatched his ball directly at the flag. The ball landed on the green and, like a rat navigating its certain way to the drainpipe, rolled truly into the centre of the hole.
George Bell, a knockabout golfer who spent a decade as the professional at Tewantin-Noosa Golf Club, had just scored an albatross – that rarest of golfing birdlife – in one of the world’s most famous senior tournaments.
And for a man who never in his life won a four-round tournament and who freely admits his competitive golfing record did not rate alongside that of many of his peers, that albatross must surely have been the highlight of his round. Right?
Of course it is something he remembers fondly, but George reckons the best thing about that week of golf was not his play, but enjoying the company of his playing partner in the club’s renowned bar after they’d completed the 18th hole.
He was paired with Christy O’Connor Snr, the Irish trail-blazer whose charisma and golfing performances were so legendary he was known throughout Ireland simply as ‘Himself’.
O’Connor was 69 and nearing the end of a career that had seen him appear in 10 successive Ryder Cups – from 1955 until 1973 – finish in the top 10 of nearly a dozen British Opens, and win at least 20 tournaments in Ireland and the UK.
“We enjoyed each other’s company on the course and when we’d finished he invited me to have a ‘jar’ with him at the bar,” George recalls.
“When we walked in, the staff treated him like royalty,” he said.
The two golfers were quickly joined by others, ordered successive rounds of Guinness and swapped stories until George, unable to drink any more, called it a night.
“But Christy stayed on,” George says. “Next morning they told me he was the last man to leave the bar.”
George Bell was a poster boy in an era of swashbuckling professional golfers who wore bell-bottomed trousers and tight shirts, and measured their success in terms of their enjoyment of life as much as winning tournaments.
He also had the knack of hitting the ball prodigious distances. Whenever a group of old-time Sunshine Coast golfers get together over a beer and discuss long-driving exploits, George’s name invariably comes up.
Rightly so. In 1971, taking part in the King of the River driving contest at Penrith, outside Sydney, George was recorded hitting a tee-shot 319 yards on the fly.
And, though the longest official drive in a tournament is Mike Austin’s 515 yard monster in the US National Seniors Open in 1974, George once smacked a drive so far on the 577-yard 6th hole at St Michael’s in Sydney that it came to a halt on the front fringe of the green.
He then proceeded to three-putt for a birdie.
George grew up in regional NSW – originally at Bateman’s Bay, then at Young, where he learnt the game and became an outstanding junior golfer. He would drive to Sydney at weekends to represent Concord, then later, St Michael’s, in pennant competition.
He turned professional in 1976 on the strength of his golfing ability, an associate of players like Bill Britten and Terry Gale, and won his first professional event – a 36-hole tournament at Liverpool, NSW. He enjoyed success on the national pro-am tour and finished in the top five at a New Zealand Open.
George moved to Noosa in 1981 and was appointed professional at Tewantin-Noosa Golf Club, mentoring trainees like Brett and Mark Officer and, in 1991, won the Caloundra Pro-Am.
After leaving Tewantin-Noosa in that same year, he took over the old driving range in Beckmans Road, continuing to teach aspiring golfers until he scaled it down in 2010 at the age of 68.
Though he’s now 79, George remains fit and healthy. He regularly swims, takes long walks, goes fishing, and still likes to be noticed – he drives a canary yellow Ford Mustang with personalised plates.
These days, though, his golf is restricted to a competitive round each Tuesday with a group of mates.
He plays off a Golf Australia handicap of 4.8 and, though he regularly figures in the rundown, he says golf for him is now just for fun – a perfect way to spend a great day with good friends.
He still gets it out there, though, and says there’s not a par five on the Noosa course that he can’t reach in two – as long as he’s ‘feeling good’ about his game at the time.
Sponsor’s generosity pays off
Peter and Anthony Zapf, well-known proprietors of the Cooroy and Pomona IGA supermarkets, have been sponsoring The Invincibles Sunshine Coast Junior Golf Tour since it began 18 years ago.
It’s an investment in something they love – the game of golf and the development of junior players.
Peter said the work The Invincibles had done for junior golf on the Sunshine Coast and south-east Queensland was quite unique and remarkable.
“To witness the results that come from their juniors and the program is truly inspirational,” he said.
The Zapfs are regular supporters of, and participants in The Invincibles’ major fund-raising event, their corporate golf day, which was held at Twin Waters a fortnight ago.
And this year their generosity was rewarded.
Anthony Zapf’s team – Tony Giles, Rowen Shepherd, Nathan Howie and Anthony himself – won the day’s competition, a four-person Ambrose, with an outstanding score of 53.25 after shooting 15-under 57 off the stick.
A Cooroy IGA team, made up of John Curtis, Peter Buhk, Shane Taylor and Lance Masterson, was third with a score of 53.875.
Wine’s the prize in Skins event
It’s difficult in these Covid-19 times to make plans for anything more than a few hours into the future.
But, all going well, the Noosa Springs Skins Series will take place on Wednesday, 8 September with a field of golfers seeking to win 72 bottles of excellent wine.
Registrations are being taken for the popular event which features teams of four golfers in a skins-type team stableford event.
The best combined score of three members of a team becomes the team score for each hole, and puts them in the running for four bottles of wine.
If there’s a tie – as is often the case – the prize jackpots until it’s won.
There’s also a prize – a Noosa Springs corporate membership valued at $2250 – for the first person to ace the par-three fourth hole.
It’s a shotgun start at noon, and the entry fee is $85 for each person ($39 for Noosa Springs’ members). The cost includes lunch and post-game nibbles.
Cooroy cancels club comps
Golf resumed on the Sunshine Coast on Monday after the Covid-19 lockdown was lifted, albeit with stricter conditions than in the past.
The usual pandemic conditions are in place – no rakes in bunkers, scoring one’s own card, physical distancing and heightened hygiene practices.
But this time only one golfer can ride in a cart, unless the second is a member of the same household. And all major competitions – open days, club championships and the like – are not allowed.
Though the State Government specifically permits standard stableford club competitions during this period, Cooroy took no chances and informed members through its website that only social golf would be permitted until 22 August.
