Golf Vic Vol 60 No 1

The two winners of the Victorian Amateur Championship may one day be household names. For now, however, they share the same priority, as they explained to STEVE PERKIN. They’re young and talented, with the golfing world at their feet, but for now, Andre Lautee and Maddison Hinson-Tolchard are planting their soft spikes firmly in classrooms, and fairways can wait. In December, Lautee and Hinson-Tolchard won their respective sides of the Victorian Amateur Championships and the significance of their wins certainly didn’t escape them, even if it did go unnoticed by Melbourne’s daily newspapers which failed to carry a line. Lautee is 19, Hinson-Tolchard 17 but just 16 when she became one of the youngest winners of the 124-year-old event, and they now have their names on golf trophies alongside the best male and female golfers this state has ever seen. Lautee won the men’s title after four rounds of stroke and four knockout matches, a tough competition to win by any measure and one the Kingston Heath member now adds to a growing resume. His golfing journey started not unlike Hinson- Tolchard’s. Encouraged to take up the game by his father, Andre fell in love with golf before he became a teenager and had a handicap of 20 at the age of 12. By the time he was 15, he was playing off two. “I was about eight or nine when Dad took me to the Studley Park par-three course and almost straight away I enjoyed it. I played at Ivanhoe Golf Club, then moved to Rosanna when I was 12 and played there until I joined Kingston Health when I was 16. “For me it’s been golf since the age of 12. I played football, soccer, tennis… but I just enjoyed golf the most. I liked the individuality and that you control what’s happening.” As well as having the technique, Lautee showed from an early age that he could also close things out. In 2016, he won the Murray River Junior Masters with rounds of 73, 70 and 73. He’d finished second the year before. At Rosanna he won a club championship and he did the same thing at Kingston Heath last year. Any club member will tell you these titles aren’t easy things to win. Last year he was also the leading amateur at the Victorian PGA, finishing an impressive eighth. But his crowning moment was certainly the Victorian Amateur title. After the four stroke rounds, Lautee was placed eighth, an impressive showing given the event attracted 168 players and included the best amateurs from all over Australia and 55 overseas players. In his quarter-final, played at Huntingdale, Lautee beat the 2017 Australian Amateur Champion Matias Sanchez 4&2 and in his semi-final overcame Metropolitan amateur Ben Henkel 5&3. This pushed him further than his 2017 semi-final defeat to the eventual winner. The final saw him up against state-team player Kyle Michel, from Shepparton. Holding a slender lead for most of the day, Lautee left the door open for a comeback when he drove into the trees on the right of the 17th. He was relieved when his opponent did the same thing, meaning both players had to chip out sideways, and the resultant bogeys to both players gave Lautee a 2&1 win. “By winning the Victorian Amateur I proved to myself that I can win big events against the best players and it was pretty cool seeing my name on that trophy alongside Peter Thomson, Mike Clayton and so many other outstanding players.” Maddison Hinson- Tolchard may not be in the shade for long. 42 Golf Victoria