Crowe has been drawn to play with current ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit leader David Micheluzzi and last week’s New Zealand PGA champion Louis Dobbelaar in one of the marquee groups starting at 8.15am on Thursday.

Not since the Rich River Classic in the mid-1980s has such a strong field gathered at Rich River Golf Club, marking the end of an extraordinary 12 month-period for Crowe.

“There’s a lot that’s happened in the last 12 months, and it kind of kicked off really at this event last year,” Crowe reflected. “It’s been a bit a bit of a whirlwind!”

And what a whirlwind year it was. First, the NSW Amateur, then the NSW Open at Concord, and in November, victory at the Asia Pacific Amateur locked away the 22-year-old’s invitation to play The Masters next month.

The St Michael’s Golf Club member recently returned from a reconnaissance mission to play Augusta for the first time and is now back in the unfamiliar role of defending champion at a professional event.

“This is a very surreal feeling, I suppose, or an unusual feeling because I’m back as a defending champion,” he added.

“I haven’t experienced it before, and I think the nerves definitely will be there.

“But knowing that I’ve done it before is going to drive me to have another great week, purely just from what I did last year.”

Crowe has been somewhat of a jet-setter over the last month or so. In preparation for his Masters’ tilt, he has spent the past few weeks in the US getting a glimpse of what will lay in store in April.

He arrived back in Sydney just last Thursday and will spend little more than a week here before returning to America.

“It’s pretty surreal,” Crowe said when asked to describe his first visit to Augusta National after years of only watching the tournament on TV.

“You see it all on TV, how well it’s manicured and how everything works. It’s a different kind of feeling when you’re playing the course, and it’s quite long.”

“TV definitely doesn’t do it justice. I went a month prior and nothing really looks out of place. It’s pretty, pretty surreal.”

Crowe said the hit-and-run visit was effective, and he realised a few areas of his game would have to be on point to master Augusta.

“It’s quite long, and there’s a lot of new tees, so I know my driver must be perfect,” said Crowe.

“You’ve got to chip it well and be a bit creative, too, but I like that sort of golf.”

With his game trending in the right direction, Crowe said the experience of Rich River this week would be a big help when he leaves the country again.

“I’ve been posting the best results that I have seen for a while and everything’s just been slowly getting put in place,” he said. “It feels really nice and hopefully I’m starting to peak at the right time.

“I know it’s different to last year (at Concord) but it feels like there’s not a lot of difference with this golf course, either.

“It’s in awesome condition. If you can take advantage off the tee, you’re going to have a lot of opportunities here.

“The greens are really true, so if you miss putts, you’ve got no one else to blame but yourself.”

The first groups will tee off on the East Course from 7.45am on Thursday morning.

Other marquee pairings include Brad Kennedy, Brendan Jones and Michael Hendry (8.25am),

Dimitrios Papadatos, Josh Armstrong and Elvis Smylie (8.35am), Blake Windred, Jake McLeod and Brett Coletta (12.50pm), Matthew Griffin, Andrew Martin and Jarryd Felton (1pm) and Michael Sim, Christopher Wood and amateur Jeffrey Guan (1.10pm).

Round 1 tee times