Tim Hart, James Mee tie Sarina Pro am, Mackay champs vie for $50k pot
After a tied tournament in Sarina, the Queensland Pro-am has moved up to Mackay where golfers are now duking it out over a $50k prize pot.
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The sport of kings is touring North Queensland as the back-to-back Sarina and Mackay professional-amateur golf tournaments are played out.
In a two day contest over June 1 and 2, challengers fought over the green at Sarina Golf club where two victors emerged.
An untimely bogey on the part of Brisbane based golfer Tim Hart combined with an excellent performance by James Mee, with two late tournament birdies, resulted in the two tying for first place and sharing the champions trophy.
Third at the Lexus Townsville Classic, Mee was convinced that his late rally would not be enough to cinch the top spot.
“I kind of just said to myself with four holes left that I just wanted to make two birdies, get to 12-under,” said Mee, who did not make a single bogey across the two rounds.
“But, luckily enough for me, (Tim) made bogey and we ended up joint winners.”
One of the most prolific winners of pro-am events across North Queensland, Tim Hart admitted that he had been struggling with “trying to put some numbers on the board.”
“I managed to hole a few putts that I haven’t been holing the last few weeks,” Mr Hart said.
“I’m a very big confidence player so once I sort of started seeing them go in and seeing the red numbers there, then I try and keep going.”
Mr Mee attributes his success to hitting a good chip onto the green in later holes.
“All the boys on the team were like, ‘That’s mint’ and then it was just off the green and then I thought, ‘you need to make birdie’,” he said.
“But then I holed the putt, which was nice.”
The two will split the champions purse of $26,500.
Just days after the Sarina Pro-am, the PIMS Mackay Pro-am will tee off with $51,500 of prize money up for grabs.
Returning to defend his championship title is 2016 European and Asian tour champion Sam Brazel who stresses the importance of the Queensland Pro-ams as a proving ground for younger players.
“There’s a rich history of pro-ams in this country. You look at some of these little mining towns and the honour boards of those pro-ams, there are some pretty impressive names on there,” Brazel said.
“It’s a very, very good learning curve. More players should be subjected to it. I think they’d be better players because of it.”
Sarina victors Mee and Hart will be joining dozens of other challengers in the struggle to unseat Brazel and claim the champions purse.
The Mackay Pro-am will continue until Saturday June 8 and will be followed by the Pioneer Valley Pro-am on June 9.
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Originally published as Tim Hart, James Mee tie Sarina Pro am, Mackay champs vie for $50k pot
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