Jeff Wall Golf Classic at Queenscliff Golf Course

AFTER raising about $80,000 for the National Heart Foundation across nine editions, the annual Jeff Wall Golf Classic finished with a bang.

A record field of 96 players took to Queenscliff golf course on Friday, February 28, and helped raised approximately $8,000, according to organising committee member Tom Freeman.

He and good mate David O’Connor were part of the original group of 12 that started the classic in 2017 following the death of Mr Wall, who passed away due to a heart attack at age 61.

“We were going to have an end of year gathering, including Jeff, but Jeff passed away some weeks before so we decided to still go ahead with the golf trip and it grew from there,” O’Connor said.

The event, which has promoted heart awareness and recognised first-responders, was rotated around different Bellarine golf courses, including Lonsdale Links.

“Jeff was well-connected within the community, not just with his work but also different sporting organisations and they have in turn supported our event,” O’Connor said.

Those groups included North Shore and Ocean Grove football/netball clubs.

O’Connor explained why it was the final edition.

“As the years went on, we had a commitment to following it up based on the great support and increase in participation,” he said.

“But as time’s gone on, we recognise that there’s many other good causes that people want to commit their time and efforts to.

“So it was on that basis that the organising committee consulted with the Wall family and talked about – Is this a good time to wind it up?

“We’re coming up to 10 years and we thought this was a good time to finish.

“The evidence that we made the right decision really was shown by the great support that we had for this event.”