Greenacres golfer for U.S.A, academy

Press, 24 June 1983, Page 17

Greenacres golfer for U.S.A, academy

BARRY SIMPSON

While many young golfers this week were watching Larry Nelson marching towards the United States Open golf title, Mark Berthelsen, of Hope, near Nelson, was experiencing the American golf scene for himself.

Mark, aged 18, a member of the Greenacres Club and a protege of the club’s professional, Murray Macklin, travelled with Macklin to Palm Beach, Florida, to enrol in one of the United States P.G.A.’s junior golf academy camps. For two weeks, and along with about 65 other young golfing hopefuls from all over the world (but mainly in the United States), Mark will undertake a rigorous coaching programme. He is only the second New Zealand junior to attend the academy. Previously, Bruce Soland, of Auckland, also took the course.

The United States P.G.A. holds four one-week camps each year. They are strictly for juniors, boys and girls,

on handicaps of scratch to 16, and have been held annually since 1977. Maclan’s involvement with the academy is, in a way, linked with his post as P.G.A. director of junior coaching in New Zealand. He was in the United States in 1977 and was asked if he would join the coaching staff. He has been returning every two years ever since. He is the only golf professional outside the United States at the academy and this year he took Mark with him. Berthelsen has been playing only two years and a half, and is presently playing to his two handicap. As with a lot of young players, he chanced upon golf by accident. While a pupil of Nelson College he was injured in an accident and gave up playing rugby. He tried golf, liked it, and as a “natural” has progressed. Macklin saw his potential when he arrived in 1980 and for a time employed him in the professional shop. His

father, Viv, confesses that Mark hated the job. “Murray came to me and we talked about it. He said he had never seen such potential in any youngster, so I agreed to back him for a year,” said Mr Berthelsen. At the completion of the camp (at a cost of J 495 a week), Berthelsen will use a special air ticket to take him throughout the United States competing in a national junior amateur circuit. It is hoped that — as happened to Bruce Soland — his accommodation on the tour will be provided by friends he will meet at the camp. Berthelsen hopes for a big future in golf. While he is very keen to play for Tasman in the Freyberg Rose Bowl tournament and to try for the New Zealand under 21 side, it is likely that he will turn professional. He has been entered in the Australian Order of Merit qualifying tournament, held by the Australian P.G.A., in September. If he qualifies, he can become a professional. Entrance in this tournament does not endanger his amateur status.