Danes deserved World Cup winners
Soren Kjeldsen and Thorbjorn Olesen blew the ISPS Handa
World Cup at Kingston Heath apart with a 2nd round 62, and stayed
focused from there on to win Denmark’s first World Cup title by four shots with
a four round total of -20.
Danny Lee and Ryan Fox will be ruing three late bogeys in
the 3rd round foursomes, just as they seemed to be mounting a decent
charge. At one stage they were sitting
T3, but slipped back from there and had too much ground to make up in the final
round. Just the same, they both pocketed
$US 105,000 for a T11 finish which represents a fair week’s work, particularly
for Ryan who has been battling all year for the smaller purses on the European
Challenge Tour. Both will now go on to
the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Pines this week.
Pettigrew secures
Australian Seniors
Martin Pettigrew has recently turned 50, and had his first
start on the Legends Tour in the Australian PGA Seniors Championship at
Mollymook Hilltop Golf Course in NSW. Not a bad way to start – with rounds of
72, 72 and 70, Martin recorded a three shot victory over seasoned Legends
player David Merriman. The winning
cheque of $A 12,600 could well be the biggest he has secured to date. Martin combines play on the PGA NZ tournament
circuit, where he currently sits 13th on the OOM, with an offshore
chemical engineering job. He will no
doubt be looking to plunder more loot on the 2017 Legends Tour, as well as
continuing to play with the younger brigade, where he is still very competitive.
LPGA European Tour
Cathryn Bristow made the long trip to Qatar for the Qatar
Ladies Open last weekend, eventually finishing T47 on +3, well behind the
winner Aditi Ashok of India, who won with a four round score tally of -15. Cathryn has had a difficult time putting
together a regular playing schedule in 2016, so let’s hope this talented New
Zealand professional has more luck in 2017.
Japan Tour
The second last event of the season was the Casio World Open
– ironically taking play on the same week as the World Cup – and it was won
comfortably by Yuta Ikeda on -13. Not
far behind was 2016 NZ PGA Champion Brad Kennedy, who finished tied 4th
for a handy cheque of around $NZ 80,000. In doing so, he moved slightly ahead of
Michael Hendry to lie 10th on the OOM with earnings of around $NZ
730,000. Hendry is a handful of Yen
behind in 11th place, but will be focused on another OOM this week:
the PGA Tour of Australasia. More on
this in our preview of the Australian PGA Championship shortly.