2021 PGA planning underway

City Golf Club keen to continue raising the bar after championship success.

The gallery follows the final group down the 18th fairway in the Queensland PGA Championship final round at City Golf Club on Sunday. Picture: Kevin Farmer

GOLF : With the buzz of the 2020 Coca-Cola Queensland PGA Championship still reverberating around City Golf Club planning has already begun to help take next year’s event to new heights.

This year’s 11th successive staging of the tournament in Toowoomba finished on a spectacular note with Michael Sim claiming the title amid extraordinary scenes on Sunday afternoon.

His thrilling win over Scott Arnold on the fourth playoff hole climaxed four days of golf dominated by world number 146 Brad Kennedy until the final holes against a field touted as the best yet assembled at the City club.

This year’s event also broke new ground with international pay television giant Foxsport telecasting live weekend play.

Sunday’s planned 4½-hour telecast extended to almost six hours with Foxsports producers electing to continue the telecast until the end of the lengthy playoff.

City Golf Club president Ed Britnell said the exposure showcasing golf, the tournament, the club and the city of Toowoomba through the Foxsport coverage proved the icing on this year’s championship cake.

“The comments I’m hearing from a wide range of people on this year’s tournament is really positive,” Britnell said yesterday.

“Some of most pleasing responses we’ve received have been from major sponsors.

“There are a lot of people very happy with how the week went.

“Comments we received from the players themselves were all positive – saying what a great tournament it is.

“The PGA officials were all very happy with how everything panned out so it’s nice to know all the hard work and planning that goes into the event produces the results you are aiming for.

“Special thanks has to go to our course superintendent John Halter and his team for the magnificent job they did in ensuring the course came up so well and how it was quickly brought back to playing condition after some heavy rain prior to the tournament and during the first couple of days.

“They deserve the biggest rap.”

Britnell said an agreement to televise the event will be made “year-by-year” but he is confident the championship coverage will return in 2021.

“I was gobsmacked by the quality of the pictures showcasing our club and Toowoomba being relayed on Fox along with the quality of the coverage,” Britnell said.

“It’s an absolute bonus to receive such exposure and I’m confident it will happen again next year.”

Britnell said a remodelling of the par-five 10th hole is among incremental improvements planned for next year.

General clubhouse upgrades are also on the drawing board including open-air decks overlooking the practise putting green area.