Morgan in action in yesterday’s final round – photo Bruce Young
As mentioned in an earlier article, the win of Jed Morgan in last week’s Fortinet Australian PGA Championship has seen the 22-year-old make an enormous leap in the latest world ranking released today.
Perhaps surprisingly the event carried a strong world ranking rating, likely as a result of the presence of Min Woo Lee in the field but all the same his jump from 1522 to 210 is one of the largest from any one event seen by this writer.
Outside of Lee, the field had no other player inside the top 300 players in the world so the event’s ranking was a surprise but from being outside the top 100 Australians in the men’s world ranking heading into last week, Morgan is now the 10th leading ranked Australian male golfer, placing further emphasis on just what last week’s very special performance has meant to him.
The week for Morgan, therefore, earned him A$180,000, an almost guaranteed European Tour card for the next three years, three starts on the 2022 European Tour Schedule and one of Australian golf’s most iconic golfing titles.
There will likely be other benefits from the win in terms of access to tournaments around the world but from being a gutted man when he missed out on both Korn Ferry and Latin American Tour qualifying in recent months the Queenslander’s life has turned full circle.
“I wanted to just make the cut this week, this week,” said Morgan when made aware of the spoils coming his way as a result of the win.
“I know that’s a low kind of target to shoot at, but it was all reality. I felt a lot of pressure, especially on myself, obviously being a member here and having won the Australian Amateur here and stuff. I missed a couple of Tour Schools in the US towards the end of my trip and come back a little bit with my tail between my legs.
“I was just lucky I went to the local Tour School in April before the Aussie Tour and yeah, obviously the opportunities I got from that, plus playing this week, it’s just been pretty sick (the modern term for good).”
His fellow Australian PGA Champion Su Oh, who won the women’s version of the event, was very much aware of the anguish Morgan had gone through when narrowly missing the chance to earn a tour card at Q-schools in the US in October and November as the pair had shared accommodation on occasion during Morgan’s recent trip to the US.
“He was up at like 4 am and couldn’t even play a hole because it got rained out and ended up missing by a shot,” said Oh. “So I felt really bad and I really felt bad because he was up so early and just couldn’t even play. I think he really deserves it this week and hopefully he’ll kill it out there on the European Tour.”
To suggest no rookie has earned more from a win so early in their career, is hardly an overstatement and, as is the case at any level of the game, you never quite know what is around the corner.
