Webex Players Series Perth gets 2026 season underway
Can Austin Bautista add to his recent WAPGA success – image PGA of Australia
The PGA Tour of Australasia gets the 2026 professional golfing year underway this week in Perth when the second half of the 2025/2026 PGA Tour of Australasia schedule begins with the $250,000 Webex Players Series Perth hosted by Minjee and Min Woo Lee, being played at the Royal Fremantle Golf Club south of the West Australian capital.
The event begins a series of 11 events between now and the end of March, the largest of those in terms of prizemoney and significance being the New Zealand Open played in late February.
This week’s event in Perth includes one of the weaker fields of the events on the schedule in the remainder of the season, the cost of getting to the event for many a concern for many at this level.
It does however offer the chance for those involved to improve or consolidate their position on the all-important Order of Merit and to get their games in shape for the upcoming events including the New Zealand Open and the newly introduced ISPS Handa Japan Australia Championship in Auckland in early March.
Most of the remaining events carry prizemoney of $A250,000, although the New Zealand Open has a purse of NZ$2 million and the Auckland event provides a nice late season boost with prizemoney of $A1.2 million.
Despite the tyranny of distance involved in getting to the west early in January, the event has assembled a balance of both members of the PGA Tour of Australasia and the Women’s PGA of Australia, a field of 144 facing the starter tomorrow, 33 of them from the WPGA .
Current New Zealand Open Champion Ryan Peake and defending champion Jordan Doull along with yet another West Australian Curtis Luck will command much of the local attention, although recent West Australian PGA Championship winner, Austin Bautista, is currently the leading player from the world ranking in the field.
Bautista won two events in South Africa last year and currently lies in 11th place on the Sunshine Tour’s Order of Merit, so it might be that he can carry that form over to this event.
The leading-ranked player from this season’s Australasian Tour Order of Merit is Jay McKenzie, who began the season well with top tens in four events in the first half of the season.
