Long Year not over yet…
It’s been a long year for many of our players, some of whom
have chalked up serious air miles travelling to tournaments and Q Schools
around the world.
However, there’s still some golf to be played with the two
concluding events in the Mondiale NZ PGA Order of Merit in Cambridge and Mount
Maunganui next week with slots in the 2018 NZ Open and NZ PGA Championship up
for grabs, and with the European Tour still continuing – this week in South
Africa, with recent Tour graduate Josh Geary in the field.
Meantime Tae Koh, Harry Bateman and Gareth Paddison all made
the cut in Japan Tour Q School, with Koh finishing the best on T25.
Mark Brown was again the leading New Zealander last week, in
the Australian PGA Championship, completing his best PGA Tour of Australasia
season for some time.
Last but not least, Tiger came back and did enough in the
Hero World Challenge to lift interest in the 2018 PGA Tour season by several
notches….
NZ PGA Circuit
The final two events are at Cambridge on Tuesday 12th
December, and Mount Maunganui on Thursday.
Harry Bateman has an insurmountable lead in the Mondiale NZ PGA OOM, but
positions further down the ladder could change and will be keenly contested.
Both fields are strong with the likes of Mark Brown, Fraser
Wilkin, Kieran Muir and Brad Shilton currently listed as playing. Josh Geary and Harry Bateman are also down to
play at the Mount.
You can follow the results for both events at www.pga.org.nz
Australian PGA
Championship
Cameron Smith showed amazing short game skills and held his
nerve to edge Jordan Zunic in a thrilling playoff in the Australian PGA
Championship at Royal Pines. After being
sledged by a spectator as he was about to play his 2nd shot on the
final hole, Smith bogeyed the tough 425 metre 18th to fall into a
tie with Jordan Zunic, but then prevailed on the 2nd playoff hole
with a great up and down which Zunic was unable to match.
The 24 year old Smith is of course well established on the
PGA Tour, but the result was heartbreaking for Zunic as victory would have seen
him onto the European Tour for 2018.
Zunic has had an unpredictable career to date – he came to Auckland two
years ago having to prequalify at Akarana for the NZ PGA Championship, and a
top 10 finish at Remuera got him into the NZ Open next week, which he then won
to complete a fantastic fortnight. Since
then he has had only one other victory, and so will have to rely on Australian
and New Zealand tournaments for at least the first part of 2018.
Mark Brown had another great week in the PGA Championship,
closing with a 67 to finish T20 on -7.
Michael Hendry also had a final round 67 to get him to T24, while other
NZers making the cut were Ryan Fox (T55, even par), Josh Geary (T62, +3) and
Michael Long (T68, +4). The cut was made
at -1, with Brad Shilton, David Smail and Daniel Pearce all missing out by one
shot. Kieran Muir and Ben Campbell were
also in MC territory.
Five New Zealanders finished in the top 30 of the PGA Tour
of Australasia Order of Merit, the best of whom was Michael Hendry (5#, earning
$NZ 220k), followed by Ben Campbell (13#, $130k), Mark Brown (16#, $120k),
Daniel Pearce (20#, $95k) and Ryan Fox (26#, $63k from four events).
Brown and Campbell in particular got a huge boost from this
to their world rankings, as you can see below.
The 2017 OOM was won by Brett Rumford, thanks largely to his
Perth Super Six victory, with Adam Bland 2nd.
Japan Q School
The Japan Tour arguably has the most tortuous route to Tour
card status, featuring three qualifying stages and then a mammoth 202 players
taking part in final stage qualifying.
The cut after four rounds was made at -2, with 90 players
going forward to the final two rounds.
Tae Koh was sitting at T8 at that point, but a 5th round 74
didn’t help the cause, and he eventually finished T25 on -10, with Paddison and Bateman both
T71 on -5.
Top qualifier was Y E Yang, a Major winner, on -23, just
underpinning what Tae, Gareth & Harry were up against. The good news is that all three will get some
status on the Japan Tour or the Japan Challenge Tour – the formula is
complicated, but Tae in particular should get some main Tour opportunities
early on before a re-rank occurs in May.
Well done to all three though for completing the journey!
European Tour
The Tour goes back to South Africa this week for the Joburg
Open, where over 200 players will tee it up on two courses: the Firethorn and
Bushwillow courses at the Randpark Golf Club.
This is a significant event for two reasons: firstly it is a
triple sanctioned tournament with the Asian and Sunshine Tours, and secondly it
is a regional qualifier for the 2018 Open Championship at Carnoustie. The first three players (not already exempt)
home in the Joburg Open will get into the Open Championship.
Josh Geary has made the long trip across, and given the
amount of golf and travel he has had in recent weeks faces some big challenges,
with a field stacked with talented locals headed by Dylan Frittelli. Frittelli has made amazing progress over the
last 18 months, and winning last week’s Afr Asia Bank Mauritius Open took him
to 55# in the world.
Coverage is on SS 53 from 9.30pm tonight.
Official World Golf
Rankings
The latest rankings are given below, together with rankings
as at the end of 2016. Our big movers
have been Ben Campbell and Mark Brown, thanks to the points weighting for PGA
Tour of Australasia events. Gareth
Paddison also shows up in this light.
Michael Hendry has also improved significantly: the higher
your ranking, the harder it becomes in some sense, but another victory or two
would do no harm…
Going in the other direction have been Steven Alker and Josh
Geary, but this is not a true reflection of how they performed in 2017. Expect to see Geary go up at a rate of knots
if he can get established on the European Tour.
In the women’s ranks, it’s Lydia Ko followed by a lot of
daylight…. Lydia has now been in the top 10 for 225 weeks.
Men
Current End 2016
Danny Lee 109 67
Ryan Fox 123 123
Michael Hendry 129 154
Tim Wilkinson 477 382
Ben Campbell 550 1105
Daniel Pearce 601 675
Mark Brown 614 1133
Gareth Paddison 803 1117
Steven Alker 968 568
Josh Geary 992 523
Women
Lydia Ko 9 1
Liv Cheng 510 552
Cathryn Bristow 513 450
Munchin Keh 714 949
Hanee Song 841 -
Jenna Hunter 1231 1119