Wade Ormsby turns season around in Jakarta
Ormsby with Asian Tour win # 5 – image Asian Tour
45-year-old South Australian Wade Ormsby has won his 5th Asian Tour title, and his second International Series event with a playoff victory over Zimbabwe’s Scott Vincent at the Jakarta International Championship at the Damai Indah Golf Club near Jakarta.
Ormsby was in or near the lead throughout the week after an opening round of 64 but was forced to dig deep on day four, holing a ten foot downhill left to righter at the 72nd hole to not only force the playoff but avoid a six way share of second place, therefore adding perhaps as much as US$240,000 to his cheque which amounted to US$360,000.
Even if he had lost the playoff, that crucial putt was worth at least US$130,000 more than he would have received had he missed.
The US$360,000 cheque equaled the biggest previous cheque Ormsby had won, which came when successful in the International Series event in Thailand in March 2023.
“It was a bit of a grind,” said Ormsby, who hung in there by making nine straight pars on the back nine. “Probably didn’t have my best stuff out there today, but I was just hanging in there. Feel bad for Scotty, you know, he kind of let a couple slip at the end there. But I hit a couple of great shots in that play-off hole, so that makes me feel better about the whole thing.”
“It’s a special one for me this one. Haven’t been playing my best golf, had a few months off and worked hard the last week. I flew up and saw my coach, Grant Field, so a massive thank you to him. Flew up there, did the hard yards, and we had a day of grinding to try and get me back on track. And even though I didn’t play my best golf this week, I putted great early on in the tournament. And yeah, thanks to all my family obviously, lost my dad two years ago, so this one is for him.”
Ormsby has struggled for much of the year on the Asian Tour with just one top 20 in the six events he had played to date, but this win will move him to 5th place on the Asian Tour Order of Merit and assure him of two full years on the Asian Tour.
All this came after Ormsby was penalised one shot for a situation on Saturday when he was deemed to have inadvertently caused his ball to move on the 4th fairway.
On yesterday’s penalty shot, he said: “It was disappointing, you know, it is what it is. Decided to take a shot and, yeah. Anyway, I did reset last night, and I felt fine about it. I was happy to be in the last group, so that didn’t change. So no, I just had to go out there and put it to the back of my head and use it as a bit of a drive to get the job done today.”
The former University of Houston golfer has a strong pedigree in the game, his father, Peter, a highly regarded and notable figure in South Australian golf before his death two years ago.
Queenslanders, Aaron Wilkin and Maverick Antcliff, and NSW’s Travis Smyth were the next best of the Australians in a share of 11th place.
