Golf Vic Vol 60 No 3 2019

tournament A win for the team in red came out of the blue when Huntingdale defeated favourite Commonwealth for the Metropolitan Division One pennant flag. MARTIN BLAKE was there. It was meant to be a one-horse race. And it was, but not quite in the way that people expected. Huntingdale’s Division One women’s triumph over unbeaten Commonweath in Melbourne metropolitan pennant came out of the blue. Only indefatigable Helen Gubbels, the 52-year-old veteran who tapped in a putt from inside a metre at the par-five 17th hole to secure the winning point on an unseasonably warm March Sunday at Victoria Golf Club, had been convinced that they could pull off the heist. “Helen was pretty confident,’’ said Huntingdale’s pennant stalwart and team manager Heather Gellatly. “I was hopeful!’’ Commonwealth came into the final having won every match of the season and having thrashed Huntingdale in the final round of the season. That the underdog could dominate the final 5½-1½ was testimony to the glorious uncertainty of sport. Beaten by Commonwealth in the final in 2018, Huntingdale’s women extracted revenge for the club a year on with an eclectic bunch that included the super- veteran Gubbels, as well as a 14-year-old, a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old. It broke a two-year Commonwealth winning streak, and number-four player and 14- time club champion Gubbels was at the forefront. She is a legend of the sport in Melbourne, a high-level nurse and mother of three 20-something young men, and it was appropriate that she secured the winning point, beating Kai Shipp 2&1, since it came after a tumultuous year for her on a personal level. A couple of months earlier, her 87-year-old father, John McLean (himself a fixture at Mornington Golf Club for years) had passed away and her mother moved into aged HUNTINGDALE’S RED- LETTER DAY by Martin Blake Photography: Paul Shire Golf Victoria 19 The victorious Huntingdale team (from left) Joelynn Do, Emily Smith, Piper Stubbs, Lisa Teo, Jeneath Wong, Trinity Francis, Kallista Do, Helen Gubbels and Roz Farrell.