OOM to kick off early

The Manawatu Wanganui Order of Merit will start this year with the Joe Kells Memorial & PN Classic on Sunday 28th January. The Joe Kells Memorial is a long standing open club event at the Palmerston North Golf Club, which was re-introduced in 2017 in a July date. The event will now return to its traditional end of January time slot, in the hope that clubs will want to use it as a pennant trial. The Masters women have the event as a trial.

The event will remain on the Manawatu Wanganui Golf OOM to kick off the rep trial season nice and early. Despite it being along time away from most rep matches, Manawatu Wanganui Golf believe it is in the best interests of players to spread OOM events right throughout the year, including in "better weather months", so as not to over commit rep players all at once at the end of the season. We want to make it attractive for potential rep players to put up their hand for selection.

NZ Golf have also confirmed that it will be included in the NZ Golf OOM, which attracts national and international amateur ranking points.

The 2017 Joe Kells winner was Junior Tatana, and the PN Classic event was won by Brydie Hodge.

We look forward to getting lots of entries for the 2018 event.