The Ballarat District Golf Association and the Women’s Golf Ballarat District are in the final stages of a long-awaited amalgamation that will see them join forces under the new Ballarat District Golf banner.

The decision to merge follows on from Golf Australia and Golf Victoria amalgamating their two gender bases more than two years ago.

With government grants for single-sex sports becoming increasingly rare, BDGA president Wayne Hines said the two parties were keen to give Ballarat clubs the best chance of financial assistance heading into the future.

“Resource wise, it will be much more advantageous – most funding that comes through now has to be gender specific,” Hines said. “A lot of the events now adays are men’s and women’s anyway and for most clubs it will be business as usual.

“But for major events like our 54-hole tournament, we will be able to get ladies more involved.”

A working party featuring members of both current organisations has worked tirelessly over the past 18 months to facilitate the move, which is in its final stages and could be completed in just over a month.

The chief concern was to address and resolve 12 key areas of concern that have arisen from the a major change.

With 11 of the 12 factors now dealt with, the party is just waiting on the new constitution to be signed off by Golf Victoria lawyers.

Once given approval, the document will be sent to all 21 Ballarat district clubs.

A final annual general meeting 30 days later will officially dissolve the two parties and announce the first year of Ballarat District Golf.

“There was no reason that we should remain separate,” Hines said.

“It’s gone 10 times smoother than what I would have anticipated. We were pretty well down the path when Golf Victoria made the recommendation.”

The new organisation will be presided over by a seven-person committee, which will direct eight separate sub committees.

Hines said the new format would help streamline the men’s and women’s pennant seasons.

A major objective of the BDG will be to increase the number of district events in the yearly calendar.