The Victorian Close Championship was an annual
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...
tournament held in
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
, Australia. It was founded in 1948. It was superseded by the
Victorian Open
The Vic Open is an annual golf tournament held in Australia. It was founded in 1957 and is the Victoria state open championship for men. It is run by Golf Victoria and is a Golf Australia national ranking event.
The event is held concurrently ...
which was first held in 1957, but was reintroduced the following year and continued until about 1978.
History
A 36-hole close championship was planned for 1939 but was cancelled because of the war. The Victorian Golf Association revived the idea in 1947 as a 36-hole "open scratch event", open to amateurs and professionals resident in Victoria, played on a single day at Victoria Golf Club. Professional
George Naismith and amateur
Bill Higgins tied with scores of 149.
The first Close Championship was played at Huntingdale in 1948 and was won by
Ossie Pickworth
Horace Henry Alfred "Ossie" Pickworth (17 January 1918 – 23 September 1969) was a leading Australian professional golfer of the 1940s and 1950s, winner of three successive Australian Open titles from 1946 to 1948, the last of which came in ...
who finished 12 strokes ahead of the field.
[ Pickworth won again in 1950, 1954 and 1955, each time by large margins.][ 19-year-old ]Peter Thomson Peter Thomson may refer to:
* Peter Thomson (golfer) (1929–2018), Australian golfer
* Peter Thomson (diplomat) (born 1948), Fiji's Permanent Representative to the United Nations
* Peter Thomson (footballer) (born 1977), English footballer
* Peter ...
won in 1949 and he won again in 1951, each time by 8 strokes.[ ]Jack Harris Jack Harris may refer to:
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* Jack Harris (film editor) (1905–1971), English film editor
* Jack H. Harris (1918–2017), American film producer
* Jack Harris (broadcaster) (born 1941), American radio personality based in Tampa, Flor ...
won in 1952 while Tom Crow was the first amateur winner in 1953.[
The ]Victorian Open
The Vic Open is an annual golf tournament held in Australia. It was founded in 1957 and is the Victoria state open championship for men. It is run by Golf Victoria and is a Golf Australia national ranking event.
The event is held concurrently ...
started in 1957, replacing the Close championship. However the Close Championship was reintroduced in 1958, with the event to be played outside Melbourne. The 1958 event was played over 72 holes but from 1959 it became a 54-hole event.[ ]Bruce Devlin
Bruce William Devlin (born 10 October 1937) is an Australian professional golfer, sportscaster and golf course designer.
Devlin was born in Armidale, Australia. He turned pro in 1961 and joined the PGA Tour in 1962 after an amateur career in Au ...
, still an amateur, won in 1959.[ The tournament existed through the 1970s. In 1976, Mike Cahill, who recently turned professional, won the event.]
Winners
''This list in incomplete''
References
{{Reflist
Golf tournaments in Australia
Golf in Victoria (state)
Recurring sporting events established in 1948
1948 establishments in Australia