Cameron Smith’s international success in 2022 and his local background will ensure huge crowds at RQ – Getty Images
Irrespective of how one feels about the impact of Liv Golf on the traditional golf tours of the world, there is little doubt that the breakaway tour has had a positive impact on this week’s Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland in Brisbane.
In January of this year it was announced that the PGA Tour of Australasia had formed a strategic alliance with the DP World Tour, designed in some respects to counter the arrival of Liv Golf and one of the spin offs is an increase in prizemoney from the A$1 million of January to now $A2 million this week and the joint sanctioning of both the Australian PGA Championship and the Australian Open following with the DP World Tour.
Not that such an increase is of any real interest to the likes of Cameron Smith, Adam Scott, Marc Leishman etc as they are playing for ten times that on the LIV Tour and in the case of Scott more than five times that figure on the PGA Tour.
Those players are also likely to have been paid a significant fee just to tee it up this week and justifiably so given the level of interest they bring and their presence as home grown players with significant success internationally providing a great dynamic to the event.
Admittedly, the events clash with other DP World Tour events in South Africa over the next two weeks but the joint sanctioning provides a few additional European Tour players and a pathway, should a lesser Australasian player luck out and win the title (as was the case in January when Jed Morgan won the PGA Championship) the chance for status on the DP World Tour and other international opportunities.
It also provides the highest level of prizemoney on the PGA Tour of Australasia this season and the opportunity for many of this country’s fledgling professionals to play for a comparatively higher purse than has been the case for them previously.
The field is headed by two time winner, Cameron Smith but another two time winner, Adam Scott, with New Zealander Steve Williams back on the bag, has the chance to add to his two Australian PGA Championship titles.
New Zealand’s Ryan Fox, a two time winner in Europe this season and runner-up in the DP World Tour standings for 2022, Cameron Davis, Marc Leishman, Min Woo Lee, Lucas Herbert, add lustre to this week’s field, as do DP World Tour winners in brothers Nicolai and Rasmus Hojgaard and Adrian Meronk, although the latter three are three of very few Europeans in the field with full DP World Tour status.
The 2022 Australian PGA Championship is arguably, however, the strongest field we have had at the Australian PGA Championship for many years with most of those in this week’s field also playing the Australian Open in Melbourne next week.
After a very hot start to the week when temperatures soared into the mid 30’s, the balance of the week will still be hot and in the late 20’s although the strong winds of Monday are expected to lessen in intensity.
It is expected that the success of Cameron Smith in particular in world golf this season and that he is a local is destined to make this week’s staging one of the most attended Australian PGA Championships since the days of Greg Norman.
