Photo: Twin Creeks Golf and Country Club – Golf NSW

The Australasian summer of professional golf begins this Thursday with the staging of the AV Jennings NSW Open at the Graham Marsh designed Twin Creeks Golf and Country Club in Luddenham in Sydney’s west.

While the assembled field does not include any of Australia’s leading 15 world ranked players, it has proven to be a great launching pad for golfers in recent years, the success of Perth’s, Jason Scrivener (2017), and Queenslander, Jake McLeod, last year, seeing both golfers advance their game and standing in professional golf considerably as a result of their breakthrough Tier One wins on the PGA Tour of Australasia.

In 2017 Scrivener recorded his first win in professional golf and has gone on to record impressive seasons in Europe in each of the last two years, including in 2019 where he has earned more than €1 million on the European Tour alone and finished 32^nd in the Race to Dubai Rankings.

McLeods’ win in 2018 came a week before his very impressive 3^rd place at the Australian Open a week later, a finish that would lead to him securing the top spot on the 2018 PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit and allowing him access to the European Tour in 2018.

McLeod lost his status in Europe at season’s end, but he has won it back at the recent tour school in Spain further highlighting the underlying experience and importance of his win at Twin Creeks twelve months ago.

Neither player are in this week’s field but their play since their wins at Twin Creeks highlights the impact such a victory can have on a career.

Now a Tier One event on the PGA Tour of Australasia, this week’s event has attracted  an interesting mix of the old and the new, the field headed in terms of world ranking Australians by US based Lismore golfer, Rhein Gibson who regained his PGA Tour status via the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019 where he won his first event on a recognised tour when winning the BMW Charity Pro-Am.

Gibson shared second place through 36 holes at last week’s RMS Classic in Sea Island in Georgia but struggled over the weekend in the PGA Tour event to finish midfield. At his best however Gibson is a brilliant player capable of recording some very low scores and did finish 4th in this event three years agoalbeit at a different venue.

Several players who missed out on gaining European Tour cards at the recent European Tour School will look to bounce back, those players including Dimi Papadatos, Jarryd Felton, Zach Murray, Brett Rumford, Blake Windred, Nick Flanagan and David Micheluzzi looking to atone for the disappointment of last week.

West Australian Jarryd Felton missed out on gaining his European Tour card by just one shot last week so perhaps he more than others will be looking to bounce back from what must have been a gut wrenching moment for him. Felton has finished runner-up and 6th in this event previously.

Windred and Micheluzzi are recent graduates to the professional ranks while another recent outstanding Australian amateur, Min Woo Lee, who has just completed his first season on the European Tour, is also in the field.

Player list

 

Jon Rahm – Getty Images

Spain’s Jon Rahm has won both the Race to Dubai and the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, a birdie at the final hole enough to edge him one shot clear of Tommy Fleetwood who had thrown out all stops with five birdies in his last seven holes to just fall short.

Rahm not only secures the largest first prize in tournament golf (€3 million) but he will move to number 3 in the world ranking behind only Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy.

“Man, you dream of making birdies on 18 to win a tournament,” said Rahm. “And how I was playing early on, I was hoping not to need that, but it happened, and I came through when I needed it and really proud of myself for that.

“I’ve thought about it (winning the Race to Dubai) all week. I’ve thought about it the last two hours. I’ve thought about it as soon as I made the putt. But it still hasn’t processed in my mind. It’s a thought in there it still has not been internalised.

“It’s really so hard to believe that some of the greatest champions in European golf and Spanish golf haven’t been able to accomplish what I have in just three years. That’s what I can’t really put my mind into.

“Sergio has been a great Spanish champion for years, a major winner. Ollie, two-time major championship winner. Miguel Angel Iimenex has done a great job, as well. Alvaro Quiros has won this event. So many great players throughout the history of Spain that have had a chance and they didn’t get it done.

“It’s just hard to put that in perspective to know that since Seve, I’m the next one to get it done. I mean, I can put the words, but it just doesn’t feel like it’s true. It’s hard to believe.”

Rahm went into the final round in a share of the lead with Frenchman Mike Lorenzo Vera, but he pulled six shots clear after seven holes. The 25-year old dropped consecutive shots on the eighth and ninth holes and his lead was further eroded on the back nine as Fleetwood finished with five birdies in his final seven holes to sign for a 65 and set the target of 18 under par.

That meant Rahm, who had posted two birdies and two bogeys after the turn, then had to birdie the last hole for victory to avoid a winner-takes-all play-off with Fleetwood to decide both the tournament and the Race to Dubai. He duly held his nerve with a superb bunker shot to four feet before rolling in the putt for a 68 to finish on 19 under par and claim the €3million first prize, becoming just the second Spaniard after Seve Ballesteros to be crowned Europe’s Number One.

Joint 54-hole leader Lorenzo-Vera secured third place another shot behind Fleetwood with Rory McIlroy another five shots away in 4^th place.

Australia’s Jason Scrivener completed a great finish to the season when he produced the round of the day (65) to jump 19 places to share 10^th place this week and finish in 32nd place in the Race to Dubai Rankings.

Scrivener’s last three European Tour starts have yielded close to A$800,000 for the 30-year old West Australian.

Scott Hend was the other Australian to make it into the select field but finished in a share of last place in the 50 man field.

The European Tour’s new season begins this coming week at the Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Australian Rhein Gibson is back on the PGA Tour for the 2019/2020 season and although yet to record a top 30 in his six events since regaining his PGA Tour card via the Korn Ferry Tour, he has begun the RSM Classic in Sea Island in Georgia in a manner that suggests he might do considerably better than that.

Gibson finds himself in a share of 2^nd place and just two shots from leader, Tyler Duncan, at the halfway mark of the US$6.6 million event after a second round of 64 followed his opening 66 on Thursday.

Gibson, born in Bendigo but raised in Lismore, has returned to the PGA Tour after first playing there in 2016. He played very well on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2019 and earned the right to play the PGA Tour again.

New Zealand’s Tim Wilkinson is another to have regained PGA Tour status this season and is in 18th place at 8 under and six from the lead while the only other Australian to make the cut, Matt Jones, is 34th.

Scores

 

Frenchman, Mike Lorenzo-Vera, has opened up a three-shot lead at the season-ending DP World Tour Championship Dubai, putting a gap of three shots between he and Spain’s Jon Rahm and England’s Tommy Fleetwood.

Lorenzo-Vera, who played alongside World Number Two Rory McIlroy, opened his second round with back-to-back birdies on his way to carding a three under par round of 69 in the eighth and final Rolex Series event of 2019.

He had briefly held a five shot lead on the back nine after his sixth birdie of the day on the 14th hole, but while the 34 year old dropped shots on the 15th and 18th holes to finish on 12 under par at Jumeirah Golf Estates, he remains in pole position to win the $3million first prize – the richest in tournament golf.

Ryder Cup players Fleetwood and Rahm, both of whom are bidding to overhaul Race to Dubai leader Bernd Wiesberger, are both on nine under par after respective rounds of 68 and 69.

Rahm had double bogeyed the eighth hole and was two over par heading to the ninth tee, but the Spaniard birdied that hole and picked up four more shots on the back nine, including an eagle on the last, to share second place with Fleetwood, who posted his seventh birdie of the day on the final hole.

Austrian Wiesberger carded 17 pars and just the solitary birdie on the 11th hole for a round of 71. He lies nine shots off the pace in a four-way tie for 13th position on three under par, meaning that as it stands, Fleetwood, who won last week’s Rolex Series event, the Nedbank Golf Challenge Hosted by Gary Player, would win the Race to Dubai.

Four-time Major Champion McIlroy double bogeyed the sixth hole in his two over par round of 74, but the Northern Irishman remains a threat six shots back in a share of fifth place on six under par, with the DP World Tour Championship, the Rolex Series and the Race to Dubai all set for a fascinating finale this weekend.

Jason Scrivener is one of two Australians to have made it into the select field of 50 and he finds himself in 20th place at 1 under, while Scott Hend is in 48th place at 7 over.

SCORES