On Friday, the now year 10 student returned from the Australian School Sport golf championships in Perth with three gold medals.

Ellison and fellow Novocastrian Brij Ingrey, who attends Macquarie College, were part of the NSW side which won the teams stroke, were joint-winners with Western Australia in the teams match play and combined with the NSW girls to take out the overall teams event.

"It was a big week and a great experience," Ellison said. "It was the first time I have represented NSW and to come away with three gold medals was pretty cool. I gained a lot of self belief."

Ellison fired rounds of 76,72 to be six over and a tie for 12th in the stroke championships which was won by NSW's Jeffrey Guan. Ingrey (69,76) finished seventh at three over. The six NSW players combined had the lowest tally of the states.

The Blues then won four of the five matches in the teams. Western Australia also only had one loss. Both teams finished with the same amount of wins and were declared joint-winners

In the individual teams match play, Ellison won two of his five matches. Ingrey had three wins, one loss and finished square once.

"The matches were all fairly tight and pretty tense," Ellison said. "I just said 'believe in yourself and hit the shot'."

Ingrey, who is in year nine and was one of the youngest competing, showed nerves of steal on the Thursday after a torrential downpour forced his match with West Australian young gun Jordan Jung to be suspended with the match all square and two holes to play. He won both holes the next morning to take the match two-up.

Ellison, who plays off plus-one at Belmont, is no longer in the baseball program at Hunter Sports High.

"Golf took over but I still play in the [school] baseball team if they need me," he said. "The school doesn't have a golf program but they are pretty good when it comes to allowing me to play in tournaments."

Both boys have now switched focus to preparing for the Jack Newton International Junior Classic to be played at Cyrpress Lakes, starting September 30.

Ellison, who will compete in the 16 years and overall, had appendicitis in the lead up to the tournament last year and didn't play.

"I'll try and win my age group and if I can finish in the top 10 overall, I would be even happier," he said.

The tournament, for ages 15 to 17, attracts the best players in Australia.

* Brayden Petersen plans to work on his approach shots in the lead up to the Australian Futures Championship after the Asquith-based Novocastrian finished second in a rain-shortened NSW trainee championship last week.

Petersen was as at six under and four shots behind Thomas Biron when the final round was cancelled at Riverside Oaks at 12.30pm Friday.

"We teed off at 10am and got halfway down the first hole and the siren went," Petersen said. "The greens were underwater. I knew we weren't going to get back out there. They had 40mm of rain overnight and the greens couldn't take any more water."

Petersen (67,72,71) had a two-stroke lead at the halfway point, but was overtaken by Biron, who shot a seven under-65 on Thursday.

"Thomas got hot in the third round, but I thought Frazer Droop and I could have caught him," Petersen said. "I had I have been in that position before a few times and so had Frazer. Tom is a first-year trainee, playing with us for two days in a row, if we could have got close we might have got there. We will never know."

Petersen, who is the No.1 ranked trainee in Australia, is now preparing for the Futures, which is being held at Ballarat, starting October 22.

"I will get my head down and practice hard over the next few weeks," he said. "Last week, from 100 metres in, I wasn't performing to as high a standard as I would have liked. It comes down to practice and repetition of technique. That is what I will be focusing on for Ballarat."

READ MORE: PETERSEN FOCUSED ON TOP SPOT

* Jake Higginbottom has edged closer to retaining his Asian Tour card. The Charlestown right-hander carded rounds of 68,68,75,70, to be at seven under and tied for 22^nd at the Indonesian Open.

Andrew Dodt (71,70,73,68) was a stroke back. Nick Flanagan (71,73), James Nitties (71,75) and Callan O'Reilly (73,79) missed the cut.

Higgingbotton is 44^th on the money list with 10 events to play.

* Nitties and O'Reilly are among a host of Hunter-based professionals hitting the road this week to play at the Gunnedah, Kew and Port Macquarie pro-ams.

* Sebastian Soderberg celebrated his 50th European Tour appearance by slaying Rory McIlroy and winning the European Masters in a five-way playoff in the Swiss Alps.

The Swede sank his winning putt from 10 feet at the first extra hole and then watched as McIlroy and Finland's Kalle Samooja both missed from shorter distances on Monday.

"Too many mistakes," said McIlroy, who came to the Swiss Alps direct from winning the FedEx Cup in Atlanta last Sunday.