Flooding has forced the cancellation of this weekend’s Drummond Golf WPGA Melbourne International official event at Latrobe Golf Club, but an “Athena”-style special exhibition has been arranged in its place for Sunday afternoon.
Torrential rain in Melbourne and flooding from the adjacent Yarra River earlier this week left much of the course underwater and a decision was taken today to cancel the 36-hole tournament, the first of 2024 for WPGA Tour Australasia.
It will be replaced by a series of activities from noon on Sunday, including an alternative-format golf exhibition, with $30,000 prizemoney on offer. It will be based on the popular Athena tournament held since 2021 which brings together top professionals and amateurs in a relaxed, fun environment.
Latrobe Golf Club general manager Bill Papadimitriou said: “The flooding is extremely unfortunate and disappointing for our club and team. Thank you to all our wonderful sponsors and volunteers who have offered support during this difficult period. We are proud to support women’s golf and the WPGA, and enthusiastic to host a community event full of fun and activities on Sunday.”
Thursday night’s cocktail party, with nearest-the-pin simulator golf, and Friday’s banquet with a simulator long drive competition will go ahead.
WPGA Tour Australasia chief executive Karen Lunn paid tribute to the work done by Latrobe Golf Club, which was also hit by significant flooding in late 2022.
“It’s devastating that the Latrobe club has suffered flooding again 14 months on, especially with the course being immaculately prepared before those rains came this week,” Lunn said. “But at the same time, they’ve done a great job to pull this together and create an afternoon of competition and engaging activities planned for Sunday.
“The focus of this week all along was to create a great experience for the players and a fun tournament for the public, and with what’s been created, we think that it will be a terrific day on Sunday and we couldn’t be prouder of Latrobe that they were able to get this happening at short notice and in difficult circumstances.”
After Sunday’s fun activities WPGA Tour Australasia players move on to the Webex Players Series Murray River to be played at Cobram Barooga Golf Club next week.
