FOR those outside Kingaroy, the name Trudi Petrie might not mean much, despite the golfer finishing a commendable fourth in the Queensland Senior Amateur Championship at Bribie Island in late July.
But 30 years ago, before she married and moved away from southeast Queensland, Trudi Jeffery – as she was then known – was one of the most promising young golfers in the country.
She won Queensland, Australian and New Zealand junior championships, was a member of Queensland junior and senior amateur teams, and had just embarked on a professional career.
Trudi Jeffery grew up on a sheep and cattle property in Dirranbandi, on the Queensland/NSW border 100km from St George, and learned to play golf at the local golf club where her father Donald was captain and an 11-time club champion.
“Mum and dad used to play golf on the weekends,” she said. “There was no such thing as babysitters in those days, so I’d just go along with them to golf. That’s basically how I got into the game.”
She’d won her first junior championship before the family moved to Gympie, 200km north of Brisbane, in 1981.
When she arrived in Gympie at the age of 11 and joined the local golf club, it needed a vote of the committee before she was allowed to play in Gympie Golf Club members’ competitions, a privilege reserved at the time for only those juniors aged over 14.
A teenage Trudi Jeffery accepts a gift from longtime Gympie head professional Scott Murphy before representing her state.
“Fortunately, they were very supportive,” Trudi recalls. “I think 95% of the committee were happy to have a junior playing.”
Her career blossomed under the tutelage of Charlie Earp, the young star joining the Queensland Under 18 squad at 12, and making the Queensland junior team at 14 and the state ladies team at 16.
She turned professional in December 1990 and headed for Japan where she found the going tough. “I was on my own most of the time in different parts of the country. I stayed two-and-a-half years.
“When I came back home to Queensland I needed a break from golf and didn’t touch a club for two years. I went to England, worked in a pub and travelled around Europe.”
By 1997 Trudi was ready for another shot at professional golf. She failed to qualify for both the Ladies European Tour and the LPGA Tour, then returned home where she worked at Gympie, Kooralbyn, Palm Meadows, Emerald Lakes, Lakelands and Pelican Waters – sometimes as a coach; sometimes behind the bar.
Somewhat disillusioned, she found herself searching for something other than golf. “I didn’t want to get to 50 and have my whole world revolve around golf,” she said.
Driving to Gympie one day to visit her ill father, Trudi passed a convoy of army vehicles and was struck by an idea. “I’ll join the army,” she thought.
After enlisting, she did her training at Kapooka and was posted to Darwin in late 2005. “I started to play golf again and in 2006 had my amateur status approved so I could play the Australian Defence Forces championship,” she said.
Back when she was a junior golfer, Trudi had known a young Caloundra player named Jimmy Petrie. “I always thought he had a bit of a crush on me,” she said. “But we went our separate ways and lost touch.”
But, in a circumstance that could have been subject of a romance novel, Trudi became reacquainted with Warrant Officer James Petrie in the Australian Defence Forces, served with him in Iraq and married him in August 2007.
Trudi won her first ADF golf championship that same year, competing against the men at Federal Golf Club in Canberra, and winning by 11 strokes. The result irked some of her male rivals, who took the matter to the Queensland Golf Union, Golf Australia and, finally, the R&A in Scotland, all of which ruled in Trudi’s favour.
Thirty years on, Trudi Petrie remains a fine golfer.
There was no similar outcry when she won her second ADF title in 2009.
Trudi and Jimmy moved to Central Queensland after they left the Army and joined Rockhampton Golf Club, where Trudi dominated the women’s club championship, and the club’s open championship for many years.
These days they live in Kingaroy, where their son James is a Year 11 student at St John’s Lutheran School.
“I’ve had a long career in golf,” said Trudi, who is still playing off a handicap of two at Kingaroy Golf Club. “And I’m enjoying it just as much now as I ever did.”
Trudi, 56, said she did not take the game as seriously as she once did. “It’s more of a hobby for me now, but it’s always nice to go out and play well.”
In the Queensland Senior Amateur, Trudi Petrie shot rounds of 81, 84 and 80 to finish fourth, four strokes behind winner Gemma Dooley, a member of New South Wales Golf Club.
In an indication of the strength of golf in a community better known as the home of former Queensland Premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, Kingaroy Golf Club’s Graham Hourn won the men’s category.
Hourn, a legend in country Queensland, is the winner of 20 straight club championships at Kingaroy and last year was a member of the Australian team at the Asia Pacific Amateur in Dubai.
The defending champion, he won the event by nine strokes after rounds of 72, 70 and 69.
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