Golf Australia's inaugural Visionary of the Year monthly award went the way of the district association for its innovative work creating a women's virtual pennant competition last year.
GMGA — which breathed life into virtual competition when COVID-19 hampered play — was the January winner and received a $500 Drummond Golf voucher.
And will now go into the running to claim the Visionary of the Year award and up to $10,000 worth of products later this year.
Golf Australia regional development officer Dylan Grandell congratulated the GMGA for its dedication to women's golf.
“It's a great achievement for Goulburn Murray, it's really good recognition for their hard work,” he said.
“(The award) was brought in to acknowledge the associations that go above and beyond.
“To have over 200 ladies engaged and playing during that unique situation (borders shut) was a massive achievement.
“It's a real credit to them and I'm happy they are recognised with this award.”
The virtual pennant format was realised after COVID-19 restrictions shut the door on playing in large groups, crossing state borders and not being able to travel more than 50km.
Which resulted in almost every district event being cancelled.
But in the eyes of adversity, GMGA had other ideas.
GMGA women’s captain Mandy Faram, who managed the program, told Golf Australia how the association went about creating the virtual competition.
“The format was really easy to implement,” she said.
“We invited clubs to enter as many teams as they could field. Team members were to play at their own home course and submit scores to compete against other clubs also playing at their own home.”
“The format was a four-ball best-ball stableford competition with five pairs in a team. This created a fantastic team atmosphere.
“We also allowed flexibility for play, mainly Sunday and Monday, so this enabled working women to play.
“Captains would submit their team’s scores, sometimes via phone, and I would allocate them a win or loss based on what their opposing pair scored.”
The virtual competition had an increase in participation by higher handicappers, more working women and students playing and more than 250 women playing over an eight-week period — an increase of 140 from the previous year.
“The women embraced the play-at-home virtual pennant so much that they voted for our later (January-February) summer Sunday four-ball pennant to remain virtual,” GMGA president David Roberts said.
“This has taken away another barrier to participation as travel would not enable such early tee times.
“Flexibility to our administration has been the key, because at the same time the men are participating in traditional head-to-head match play four-ball pennant.
“Looking ahead, I believe we will continue to run our traditional match play. There is, however, obviously an appetite for virtual, so we might end up offering both.
“All the women of the district who participated should be congratulated and feel proud of being part of this amazing step.”
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