The ALPG launched it’s new initiative, the National Women’s Golf Clinics, at Oatlands Golf Club on the 16^th September. Sixty three ladies from the Sydney area were quick to snap up the promotional offer to spend the day learning the game from seven of our talented and most accomplished ALPG professionals; Rachel Hetherington, Shani Waugh, Anne Rollo, Dennise Hutton, Kate Macdouall, Lee Harrington and Jo Bannerman.

The purpose of the ALPG National Clinics is to showcase the talented ALPG Teaching Professionals that we have all around the country and to help get more women playing and enjoying the game.

The day started with a breakfast at the beautiful Oatlands Golf Club, where the players were split into their groups for the day. For those who were looking for some sustenance for the day ahead breakfast was provided by our sponsors Breville ,which included mouth-watering waffles served with fresh fruit and coffee. On hand for the welcome speeches were Lionel Lee, CEO of Bing Lee and his mother Yenda Lee who also participated in the day’s events. Lionel was instrumental in assisting us get the launch of our ALPG National Clinics off the ground and introducing us to our sponsor for the day, Breville.

There were four practice stations set up for the ladies, putting with Lee Harrington, chipping and pitching with Kate Macdouall, bunker shots with Anne Rollo and driving with Jo Bannerman. On the course were Rachel Hetherington, Shani Waugh and Denise Hutton, showing the ladies their warm up routines and putting them through their paces, instructing them to play shots from every area of the golf course you could imagine!

The morning session went really well, and as lunch was served and there was much discussion amongst the ladies about the various things they had learned. It seems that everyone was having a great time and learning a lot about the various elements of the game they had received instruction in. Shani Waugh and Rachel Hetherington took the stage after lunch and spoke to the ladies about various aspects of the game and some of their experiences on tour and answered questions from the floor (which proved to be very entertaining for all present.) The one thing that did come out was that Rachel had spent much of her time on tour practicing diligently, while Shani took a different approach playing Uno and hanging out with her friends on tour a lot!

After the Q and A it was out to the 12^th hole at Oatlands GC, a tricky 180m par 3 along the fence line, where it was time for Rachel to hit some shots for the ladies! Her first two shots were extremely impressive considering she had not had a chance to warm up and was borrowing Jo Bannerman’s 5 wood! The ladies were in awe of how easy and smooth Rachel swings the club and how easy she made it look!

The afternoon session saw the groups switch around, so the ladies who had spent the morning on the course took to the various practice stations for the afternoon, and vice versa.

The day ended at around 4pm, and though there were some tired legs everyone had a smile on their face as they headed to the clubhouse for the presentations.
As many of the ladies were toasting the day, the ALPG professionals were busy selling raffle tickets, the proceeds of which were to be shared by two great causes close to the heart of the ALPG professionals. The first is the official charity of the ALPG, the “Fiona Pike Skin Cancer Awareness Campaign”. Fiona Pike was an ALPG professional who had competed on both the LET and LPGA Tours, and unfortunately passed away as a result of melanoma in 2010. Right up until the end Fiona was determined to get her message out, especially to all those who played golf and spent extended periods of time in the sun. The other beneficiary of the raffle would be the “Next Generation Club” an initiative launched by the ALPG designed to mentor young women who aspire to have a career involved in the golf industry.

The winning prize in the raffle was a Cobra Golf bag while second prize was a Cobra driver and fitting In addition to the top prizes from Cobra, other prizes included three Cobra/Puma $100 vouchers and a signed photo of Karrie Webb with her 2014 Australian Open trophy. Breville had also donated a Smart Waffle maker as a lucky door prize, which was won by Oatlands GC member Sandra Sun.

All in all the launch went as well as the ALPG could have envisaged. Even the weather was kind to us, and we managed to avoid the many severe thunderstorms lurking all around the Sydney area for most of the day.

To all of the ladies who attended, from all of us at the ALPG, a very sincere thank you for supporting the launch of our National Womens’s Clinics. I hope you enjoyed the day as much as we all did.
Also very sincere thank you to our sponsors for the day, Breville and Bing Lee, to our hosts, Oatlands Golf Club, to the ALPG’s partners Cobra Puma for supplying prizes and jackets for our teaching professionals and Volvik Golf balls, for supplying the range balls for the day.

Finally to our wonderful ALPG teaching professionals for putting on such a great day, we look forward to many more ALPG National Women’s Clinics in the future.