Golfing Scrapbook of     "Koala" Karl Vilips

Can Juniors receive assistance? The R & A's Rules of Golf and Golf Australia provide for Amateur Golfers to obtain Support to offset the costs of competing in junior tournaments. From January 1st, 2012 this will be extended so as to also include the costs associated with living expenses. A video of the changes is available at the R & A here.

Those rules are designed to ensure that a player who is capable of being a Professional needs to strictly follow these rules. However,even these generous new changes don't apply yet to young kids like Karl at this stage of their development as they are no threat to any Professional golfers, which is fantastic for emerging kids like Karl. 

Few are aware that Karl has been raised solely by his Dad since a year of age and that we live in government housing, yet confusion by many potential supporters about this rule saw us fail to raise the money needed to travel and Karl miss out on defending his world title in 2010. In 2011 our supporters better understood these rules, so Karl was able to get to the World Champiosnhips where he went on to win the World title for the 2nd time in a row.

Just as we did this year, we need to ensure that we get supporters aboard to get him to the 2012 Junior World Championships to try to once again showcase the strength of junior golf in Australia. So if you are able to hop aboard as a Supporter, we'd love to hear from you by emailing me at pauls@westnet.com.au.

Current Supporters;

• DG Biocare. Many thanks to Chris and the team at DG Biocare for assisting in the cost of Karl playing in junior tournaments in Queensland and of their continued support of Karl .

• Mizuno Golf (Australia). Karl plays Mizuno's game-improvement, Grain Forged JPX 800 Pro Irons.

• Southern Golf Club on Melbourne's famous "Sandbelt" region in Australia. The Sandbelt region will host to the 2011 Presidents Cup, just 10 minutes from Southern Golf Club.

• Bridgestone Golf. Karl has now won 2 world championships using the Bridgestone B330 RX and B330RXS golf balls after attending a Bridgestone Ball Fitting at Pinehurst in 2009.
  

• Stuart Appleby Junior Golf for theirs and Stuart's support and encouragement to Karl and all junior golfers in Melbourne and Victoria.
  

• Golfkid Clothing, for providing Karl with "wicked" shorts, trousers and shirts.