Gympie captain Brett Groundwater with Michael Smoothey and championship sponsor Russell Behrens.
THERE aren’t a lot of similarities between the newly crowned club champions at Gympie Golf Club, north of Brisbane.
The men’s champion is a legend of the club, an evergreen competitor who notched his 21st title when he claimed A grade honours in June, while the women’s champ is a 12-year-old slip of a girl, tasting success for the first time.
But while there are chasms between their ages and levels of experience, Michael Smoothey and Charlotte Rensonnet share a passion for golf, are competitive by nature, and have that rare ability to lift their games to the highest level when it really counts.
And they marvel at each other’s skill, determination and will to win.
Smoothey, 53, won his first title in 1996 – and has been winning club championships at Gympie pretty much ever since. He’s been A grade champion three times as often as anybody in the club’s history, and his record places him amongst the most accomplished club golfers in the country.
Perhaps his most outstanding effort was in 2002 when he won by 18 strokes, shooting rounds of 66, 69, 68 and 70.
In that same year he won the Murgon Open, the Cooroy Open and led the club’s pennant squad to success. He also shot 65 in a trainee pro-am at Gympie – a score that none of the aspiring young professionals in the field could match.
A postman, who these days treats golf as a pleasant pastime with his mates, Smoothey only practices when he’s got something special coming up – like the annual club championship.
Charlotte, on the other hand, can’t get enough golf.
She’s been playing since she was seven when her dad, Adam, a single figure-handicapper, took her to Gympie golf course and taught her the basics of the game.
Rensonnet, a farrier, gave golf away for a few years, but Charlotte stuck with it. Like Michael Smoothey, she attended weekend clinics and received advice from club members.
But dad Adam has been the biggest influence on her game, regularly driving her to the course from their home and playing rounds with her after school and on weekends.
Charlotte Rensonnet shows her style on the golf course.
“I used to give her a stroke a hole, but I can’t do that anymore,” Rinsonnet said.
Charlotte finished top 10 in the 10-12 year division of the state schools championship in Central Queensland in June, a performance that saw her selected for the national titles in Newcastle in October.
And when she’s not winning club championships, she’s playing No 1 for the Gympie women’s pennant team, scoring a 4&3 victory over her 21-year-old Caloundra opponent in her most recent match.
“She’s become a lot more confident in herself,” proud dad Adam said. “She now plays with the ladies on Saturdays – not with me. They just love her.”
Rensonnet says his daughter’s biggest issue is that she puts too much pressure on herself; that her expectations are too high. “I try to tell her that golf’s not a game of perfection,” he said. “Just go out and have fun.”
Now a six-handicapper, with her best score a commendable round of two-over-par, Charlotte is already making plans for her future. When she finishes high school, she wants to attend university in the US, get a degree and play collegiate golf.
She wants to play on the LPGA Tour and, yes, become the world’s No 1 golfer.
And that’s just fine with her dad – as long as her golf equipment sponsor is prepared to supply Rensonnet with free golf clubs for as long as he plays.
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