Serena Kirby, Denmark Bulletin

Golfer Marion Nelson has been Denmark’s ladies’ golf club champion 25 times.

But that is just the start of Marion’s golfing achievements.

She has achieved a rare hat trick by winning GolfWA’s Provincial Cup three times in a row and one other time as well and recently played in the WA State Seniors Golf Championship, at Royal Perth Golf Club, and won the overall nett (meaning best handicapped score).

And Marion has won GolfWA’s Country Championship Cup five times and was this year’s winner of the Lower Great Southern Women’s Golf Association Championship which is a trophy she has won 13 times before.

Singapore-born Marion moved to Denmark with her husband in 1992 and even though she had played tennis and squash competitively she’d never played golf before.

“A few years after we moved here I decided to try golf,” Marion said.

“I was a total beginner and didn’t have any lessons at first but I found golf really, really addictive and enjoyable.

“When I got better at it, that’s when I decided I wanted to get a lot better, so I went to Perth and had a few lessons.”

Marion said the most consistent part of her game was that she hit straight down the middle and her shots have a fairly good length.

She said she’d like to be a longer hitter but ‘height and muscles’ are needed to hit a long ball and admits, with a laugh, that she lacks both of those.

Marion says that ‘for a little country town, Denmark’s golf course is very good’ and that the club holds some top events including the Denmark Summer Golf Classic.

“It’s not a very long course but the social aspect of golf is probably what’s most attractive because you meet a lot of people that I wouldn’t otherwise meet,” Marion said.

“There’s a women’s open day where women from all the regional areas come together and there’s so much camaraderie.

“Golf’s not just a game; it’s a community and sometimes it’s not just about playing to win, it’s about participation and being with other people.”

The Denmark Country Club welcomes new players and will run a 10-week course for beginners early next year, with the date yet to be confirmed.

The club is also starting a monthly ‘social Sunday’ in 2024 plus a new junior program.

Anyone interested can contact the Country Club on 9848 1413.

This article appeared in the Denmark Bulletin, 9 November 2023.