The Golf Australia Victorian team have solidified a win in its annual match against the Australian Defence Forces, with the ADF reclaiming victory shortly after against the GA national team. It was the 31st staging of the Victorian match against the ADF team, and a high standard over the two days on the perfectly presented Sorrento course saw many sub-par rounds and some huge hitting from the mostly younger ADF players. Played at Sorrento Golf Club late last week (March 18-19), the Victorian team of Mark Boulton, Simon Bracegirdle, Allan Bullas, Geoff Charnley, Gordon Claney, Colin George, John Kelly, Suah Kim, John Owen, Helen Pascoe, Robert Wallace, and Stephen Valentine pulled together for another victory against the ADF. Memorable performances came from ADF’s Derrin Morgan who came from three down to square the match with two time Australian Senior Champion Gordon Claney, along with Victorian Simon Bracegirdle’s 3&2 victory over the experienced Daryl Whitehead. The GA Vic team went into the final day of the event with a two point lead after the four-ball and foursomes matches on day one and held on for victory with a strong performance in the singles matches. The 13.5 to 10.5 win makes it 19 total wins overall to GA Vic and 12 to the ADF. “I think that was some of the best golf I have seen from Team Vic in the past few years”, said Victoria’s team captain Pat Giles. “We were playing a very strong ADF team but some of our players were coming off some strong wins on the Vic Senior OOM circuit, with John Owen winning at Bright, Rob Wallace at Midlands/Ballarat and of course we had duel Australian /Victorian senior champion in Gordon Claney and Vic Mid-Amateur champion Mark Boulton.” With a break over the weekend, the ADF team moved across to Moonah Links to contest the match against the GA national team on March 22-23. Played across both the Open and Legends courses at Moonah, again, some substantial sub-par rounds were played over the two days. It was a strong start for the ADF team who lead the GA team by two points after day one. Their two point lead was assisted by a stellar performance from ADF duo Whitehead & and Tony Greenwood, who birdied eight out of nine holes in their foursomes match against GA pair Peter Hargreaves & Greg Orvis. Leading out the final round for GA in the singles matches was talented NSW senior Jane Wall and the current Victorian Mid-Amateur champion Suah Kim. Both players put in solid performances but were unable to hold off ADF players Julie Lakotij and Beth Dippel, going down 6&4 and 3&2 respectively in their handicap matches. The match came down to the wire, with the decider coming down to the pairing of current Victorian Senior Amateur champion James Lavender and ADF’s number two player Josh Evers. Coming from two down with three to play, Lavender rallied to be all square on the last hole. Evers sunk a 3m putt to halve the match with Lavender, securing a narrow victory for the ADF at 12.5 to 11.5 against GA. Mike Peeck, GA’s national team captain said he was very proud of his players. “Early difficulties in putting together a national team due to Covid and the threat of border closures was finally overcome, and the fact that the result depended on the last putt of the day shows how well we played against one of the strongest ADF team in the past five years”, said Peeck. The GA national and GA Victorian matches against the Australian Defence Forces are played annually, over a Ryder-Cup style format. The event is highly regarded on both the Golf Australia and Defence Forces schedules, and it played in great spirit and wonderful camaraderie. Full results: GA Victoria v ADF Match GA National v ADF Match