Opportunity beckons in West Australian flagship events
The extraordinarily talented Curtis Luck returns to tournament play in his home state despite ongoing injury issues – image Australian Golf Media
This week’s West Australian PGA Championship essentially begins a nearly six-month stretch of tournaments staged by the PGA Tour of Australasia.
Admittedly, the PNG Open and the Northern Territory PGA Championship, played in August, were also part of the 2025/2026 PGA Tour of Australasia schedule, but this week’s event gets things underway in earnest.
The PGA Tour of Australasia is, essentially, built around its three flagship events, namely the Australian Open, the Australian PGA and the New Zealand Open Championships.
But this week’s event over the spectacular Graham Marsh designed Kalgoorlie Golf Course in the mining town of Kalgoorlie, located nearly 600 kilometres north and east of Perth, is one of numerous $250,000 events providing continuity for the large cohort of domestic golfers who don’t have the luxury of status on other, more lucrative tours.
The pathways now created by an Order of Merit arising from these events offer opportunity for Australasian golfers to progress their careers onto other tours, more especially, the DP World Tour, and players such as David Muicheluzzi, Kazuma Kobori, and Elvis Smylie, amongst others, have benefited by leading the Order of Merit and advancing their careers at the next level.
The WAPGA Championship is a forerunner to next week’s WA Open in Perth, so a fortnight of good golf could assist a young emerging player to much greater success from his efforts in the West.
South Australian Jack Buchanan would have been the defending champion, having won in a playoff last year over local Jordan Doull, that pair finishing one ahead of the eventual Order of Merit winner, Elvis Smylie, but having played the Alfred Dunhill in Scotland last week perhaps it was too much of a rush to get back to Kalgoorlie in time for a proper defence for Buchanan and he will not take his place in the field.
New Zealand Open winner and the highest world-ranked player in the field, Ryan Peake, is entered, as are numerous other winners of titles last summer in Australasia, but there may also be a lot of interest in the performance of Perth’s Curtis Luck.
The winner of the US and Asia Pacific Amateur Championships in his last year as an amateur in 2016, Luck’s professional career has been plagued by injury issues in recent times, but he is a good enough talent to have finished runner-up at the Australian Open last December, and although playing on an enforced limited schedule, he is an outstanding talent who could do well.
