AMONG THE BEST 

(An excerpt from the 75th Anniversary Celebration booklet written in 1991 by Jim Valli) 

The Queens’ Park club has produced two golfers in the past 20 years who rank with the best of the postwar years. 

The club has been a nursery for many fine golfers over the years, but Robyn Boniface (nee Low) and Bruce Soulsby gave the Park a status on the national scene that it had never held before. 

Mrs Boniface's clashes with her great Invercargill club rival, Liz Douglas, took women's golf in the south to new heights from the mid-1970s. Some of their clashes in events such as the Southland championship at Otatara or the Stead Cup at the Park attracted galleries of 600 to 700. 

Robyn Low was only 20 when she became the New Zealand women's golf champion, beating Mrs Douglas, 3 and 2, in a memorable all-Southland final at the Waiohiki course in Napier in 1975, the pair returning home to a big airport reception

The following May she won the national junior title at Ashburton, beating defending champion Kaye Maxwell, 1 up, in the final, to become the first woman to hold the two national titles at the same time. 

Later in 1976 she combined with Mrs Douglas to win the foursomes title at the New Zealand championships at Russley by four strokes. She came close to making it another final with Mrs Douglas in the match play championship, but she was beaten at the 18th in the semi-finals by Cushla Sullivan, who had a lucky break on the last hole when her bunker-bound ball was brought up short by a big pool of water. 

Mrs Douglas beat Miss Sullivan, 6 and 5, in the final. 

The two Southlanders retained their foursomes title in New Plymouth the following year. 

A modest and unassuming young woman, Mrs Boniface never really got the recognition she deserved from the national selectors. She was selected in the New Zealand junior team in 1974 and subsequently made three trips to Australia with national teams in the late 1970s but never made an official team. 

Her omission from the New Zealand team for the Colgate Far East tournament in the Philippines in 1976 was a mystery to most golf followers. 

A great memory for her, however, was her selection as partner for US golfing legend Sam Snead in an exhibition match at the Miramar course in Wellington. 

Mrs Boniface, who made her Russell Grace debut at the age of 16 at Balmacewen in 1972, has played 14 of these tournaments (Stylemaster in recent years), but did not win the No 1 spot for Southland until 1985, following Mrs Douglas's move to Christchurch. 

Winner of the Southland championship in 197476-83, she won the Southland champion of champions title last year for the fifth time. 

Mrs Boniface has dominated the Queens Park club championship in recent years and, in fact, has never been beaten in a club championship match at the Park. 

Although she had been beating the best golfers in the country for several years, she did not win the Park championship until 1978 because, as a Saturday player, she could not play in the club championship. She won the title for 10 years in a row after that, up to 1987, and after a period in Greymouth returned to Invercargill to win the title last year for the 11th time. 

Although she had put family before golf in recent years she continues to rank among the best in the country, and late last year reduced to a one handicap for the first time in her career. 

Mrs Boniface, who began playing golf at the age of 12, is a member of a family whose name is synonymous with the Queens Park club. 

Father Bert Low gave yeoman service to the club as secretary for 30 years between 1959 and 1989 and was made a life member of the club in 1983. Wife Thelma won the women's silver division championship four times—in 1971-72-73-76—before Robyn started her domination of the title; son Stuart head greenkeeper since 1976, won the senior championship in 1971 and 1974 and has just returned to the game after an eight year layoff; and Graham, now senior vice-president and secretary of the jubilee committee, won the intermediate title in 1984 and 1987. Bert achieved his life long golf goal in 2006, at the age of 86, when he won the Club's Junior B title.

Bruce Soulsby was probably the best schoolboy golfer this country has produced. The golfing whiz kid won the Queens Park championship in 1976, only a few weeks after his 14th birthday, beating Bill Lewis in the final, and was down to scratch when 15. He won the Southland stroke play championship at Otatara in February 1978, when still 15 with a seven-under-par total of 285 for the 72 holes, was Invercargill club champion at 16 and was No 1 in the Southland Freyberg team the same year. 

Winner of the South Island and New Zealand boys' championships, he was twice sent to the US as Air New Zealand Young Golfer of the Year. He was still only 16 when he took up a four-year old scholarship there at Jack Nicklaus's alma mater, Ohio State, in Columbus, Ohio, and made the all-American junior team in his first year there. 

After twice missing out on his US tour card —luck deserted him both times at the qualifying school — he finally qualified for that toughest of all golf circuits in 1987. He finished 139th on the money list that year with $US60,216 but slipped to 187th the following year and lost his tour card. He teamed up with Greg Turner and Frank Nobilo to represent New Zealand in the Dunhill Cup finals at St Andrews that year. 

Soulsby played some spectacular rounds on local courses during holiday visits to Invercargill. Probably the best was his 11-under-par 62 at Otatara in January 1989. That round included an eagle and nine birdies. 

Now 28, he has been involved in a big golf project in recent times, but rumour has it that he is keen to have another crack at the tour.