Schoolboy beats adults in golf championship

Riverton Golf Club officials believe 12-year-old Jake Slater is the youngest to win their intermediate men’s championship.

He won the title earlier this month and to make the occasion more special, his mother Valerie won a women’s grade competition on the same day.

Club secretary Bill Jones said: ‘‘As far as we can determine Jake is the youngest to win the intermediate championship.’’ President Dene Cole agreed.

‘‘I’ve been in the club for 40 odd years and I can’t remember anybody that age winning the intermediate before,’’ Cole said

In the next few years Cole expects Jake to win the championship’s senior men’s section. However, in the short term Jake will play in Southland and Otago competitions during the summer.

Playing against adults had helped him improve as a golfer, Jake said.

He was pleased with his performance in the Riverton championship.

‘‘I played pretty well and they [the opposition] were a lot older than me.’’

For most of the past two years, Covid-19 restrictions and lockdowns had reduced the amount of tournaments Jake usually played in.

Before the pandemic, he played in the New Zealand and Australian Junior Opens. In his age group at the New Zealand Junior Open, he finished second in 2018 and fifth in 2019. He played in the 2019 Australian Junior Open and finished seventh in his age group.

On a trip to the United States in 2019, Jake finished in the top 30 in the USA Future Champions International Open in San Diego and finished in the top 25 in the USA World Future Stars in Las Vegas.

Jake was invited back to those events in 2020, but they were not held because of the pandemic.

Jake attends Southland Boys’ High School in Invercargill.