Solid Start to 2017

 It was a busy start to the final amateur year.  Travis played 4 tournaments in 6 weeks.It was a tough start to the year carding a +8 in his first round at the Master of the Amateurs at Royal Melbourne.  The first round saw Travis was near the bottom of the elite 78 man field.  He hung in and clawed his way back to finish +6 and T26.At the Aussie Am held at Yarra Yarra he eased onto the Match Play rounds with a +7 finishing T47 in a field of 234 players.  After good wins in the first three rounds he was knocked out 3&2 in the quarter final by an on form Robert MacIntyre. Last year MacIntyre was runner up at the British Am.Travis was the medallist at the NSW Amateur Championships held at Terry Hills.  He shot -8 and -6 to streak the 240 man field by 6 shots over second place.  Unfortunately Travis was bound by a commitment to a friend's wedding and did not play in the matchplay section of the tournament.These performances helped Travis secure an invite to the Victorian Open Championships at 13th Beach.  The $500,000 event is now a tier one event on the professional calendar with a strong starting field.The first two rounds are split between the Beach course and the Creek course.  Winds got up to 40km for the afternoon field at 13th Beach for the first round.  Travis was at the wrong side of the draw and his score of +2 left him with work to do if he was to make the week end.  An even par round the next day left him 5 shots off the 3 under par cut line and T104 in the 144 man field.These results, and the move to the professional ranks of two cohorts, leave Travis at the number one amateur ranking in Australia and 36 in the world R&A rankings.He next tees up at Riversdale  on 9 March where he won in 2015.