Showtime:m Alison Whitaker will be teeing it up with the big guns at Royal Melbourne in the Australian Women’s Open.
ROBERT BANKS
At Royal Melbourne Golf Club, it’s rare, if not impossible, for women to play the famous composite course. It is the privilege of the club’s associate or lady members, and usually in the company of men in a mixed foursomes (alternate shot) event.
However, women are about to smash through the “glass ceiling” when the club hosts the $1.1 million Australian Women’s Open next week (February 9 -12).
It will be the first time women have played a professional event on the course and, fittingly, Alison Whitaker, 26, an emerging Australian international who grew up in nearby Black Rock, will be one of them. The tournament will also mark the first time an official Ladies Professional Golf Association event has been staged in Australia. The LPGA is the lucrative main women’s golf tour in the US and where Whitaker ultimately wants to forge her career.
And while she admits she’s on a steep learning curve as far attaining her long-term ambition, Whitaker believes she will have a distinct advantage at “Royal”, a course where she cut her golfing teeth from the age of 13 under the guidance of legendary club professional Bruce Green.
Whitaker recalls the day Green spotted her. She was a student at St Leonard’s College and was having a game at Sandringham public course with her mother Kerry and older sister Lauren.
Green and RM general manager Bill Richardson, both of whom had sons who were friends of the Whitaker girls, were on a logistical tour of Sandringham planning the car parking and practice facilities for the 1998 Presidents Cup.
“They started heckling us on the first tee, saying, ‘Come on, show us what you’ve got’,” Whitaker recalls.
“Mum got up and wiggled her bum a bit and hit it OK, followed by my sister. Then I hit a tree about 180 metres away. Bruce must have liked something he saw. He said, ‘Come and see me the Monday morning after the Presidents Cup.’
“After that, Bruce coached me at Royal for four years. Technically though, Sandy Mackenzie was my first coach because dad (George) took me and my sister to a couple of clinics she ran at ‘Sandy’ before Bruce spotted me. Bruce is a Melbourne golf institution. He knows everyone.”
Mackenzie, a former top tour player, says Whitaker is the “full package”. “She’s absolutely gorgeous looking, she’s smart, has a great personality and is a heck of a player,” she says.
Whitaker was crazy about sport at school. She played tennis, beach volleyball, soccer, basketball, softball, table tennis and golf. She also swam and ran cross-country. “In the end it came down to a choice between softball and golf. I just thought there would be more longevity in golf and I got to meet more people, and in hindsight the number opportunities that have been thrown my way (because of golf) is pretty ridiculous.”
A member of the elite Victorian Institute of Sport, Whitaker decided a few years ago she needed to challenge herself more to reach her full potential. She travelled to America and played a brace of top amateur events – including the US Amateur where she did quite well against three highly regarded amateurs, unaware of their daunting reputations. Whitaker more than held her own against the trio – Ryann O’Toole, who made her rookie debut for the US in the 2011 Solheim Cup (the women’s equivalent of the Ryder Cup); Amanda Blumenherst, the most decorated US college athlete of all time; and Maria Jose Uribe, now a winner on the LPGA Tour.
All the US college coaches were watching and she was offered a scholarship to Duke University in North Carolina where she graduated with a major in psychology and minors in English and theatre studies. Whitaker gained her card on the USLPGA for 2011 but failed to keep it. She has just missed getting it back for this season and will play the Futures secondary tour in the US and hopefully in Europe in 2012.
“There’s a big gap between the LPGA Tour and amateur golf,” she says. “The courses are longer and the rough is thicker. I learnt the hard way you just can’t afford to miss greens in regulation. I found it hard to say no to any event because I just love playing professional golf. I wanted to be at all the events because I was having such a blast. But it’s a year-long thing and you have to take time off. Now I’ve got a year to figure it out and get a support team behind me over there.”
While she has plenty of friends on tour, including her former college teammates and opponents, Whitaker says Australia’s Karrie Webb was a “fantastic support” in her rookie year.
“It was just great knowing I had someone like Karrie looking out for me. I never had any hesitation going to her for help. She really wants to give back to the game that has given so much to her. I went over to the US and had trouble getting settled. I wasn’t cocky enough to go out and expect to do well alongside people I have looked up to all my life like Karrie and Juli Inkster. It was a big jump. So I was lucky I got to play with Karrie a few times and her advice and friendship have been invaluable.”
While the Open boasts an amazingly talented field headed by the brilliant Taiwanese golfer Yani Tseng and Webb, Whitaker feels she will have a distinct home ground advantage.
“I grew up playing Royal Melbourne. I like to think I know what to do here,” she says. “There are a couple of holes where I think placement is really important, especially where you hit it on the green. I was absolutely spoilt as a youngster at Royal. I’ve played all the holes on both courses but never the composite layout (in isolation). I know how Royal plays. I know it gets harder in the afternoons and I know the ball bounces a little bit higher. There are a few little tricks to it.”
Whitaker revealed she had her first eagle at the 18th hole on the east course, a par five for the women, on the last day of the last millennium when she was playing with Green. Her father immediately had the ball mounted and framed.”
That hole will be the final hole during the Open and maybe, just maybe, George Whitaker will have to make room on the mantelpiece for yet another of his daughter’s trophies after she plays it for the last time in the championship.
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Chipping in
Rachel Hetherington
“Playing the Women’s Open at Royal Melbourne is a wonderful acknowledgment of the fantastic growth of the women’s game both here in Australia and internationally. A credit to the past players and a wonderful opportunity for the current players to continue to believe there are no limits to what they can achieve.”
Shani Waugh
“Funny, but I never thought it a big deal that the girls hadn’t played Royal Melbourne composite course. I knew we had arrived when we teed it up at Kingston Heath a few years ago and the week was topped off by that great Karrie Webb v Ji-yai Shin finish that captured most golf fans’ attention. We have so many great courses in Australia … I guess it just took its time getting to this one.”
Sandy Mackenzie
“The best female players on the planet, the first event of the USLPGA 2012 season and one of the greatest golf challenges in the world, Royal Melbourne … it doesn’t get any better than that. This is the most exciting thing that has ever happened for women’s golf in this country and I can’t wait to be a part of it."