Losing second spot following the Vic Open to that week’s winner, and defending champion at this week’s Webex Players Series Hunter Valley Brett Coletta, Kobori is now in prime position to claim one of three DP World Tour cards offered via the season long points race.

Sitting behind Min Woo Lee on the back of the West Australian’s Australian PGA Championship victory and strong finish at the Australian Open, Kobori would nominally finish as No.1 if the season were to conclude now. Lee unlikely to play the minimum four events, so too Adam Scott and Marc Leishman who currently sit inside the top-10.

The New Zealander and Coletta have an eye on the New Zealand Open with its increased Order of Merit points, yet both are at Oaks Cypress Lakes Resort this week to further bolster their spot in the chase for pathways overseas.

Kobori’s plans echoing those of David Micheluzzi last season, with the pair managed by the same agency, SPORTFIVE, and the 22-year-old similarly opting for tournaments on his local circuit in lieu of Tour schools elsewhere.

“I made a pretty bold call this year not playing Asian Tour Q School, instead committing to other Tours and stuff, so pretty happy with how it’s going and then get my world ranking up and it would be pretty cool,” Kobori said.

“I won the first one and I think I was sitting like seventh or so. Then won the week after that and it bumped me up to second and the more you win, the more cushion you have.”

That cushion is currently 170.39 points over Coletta in third, with last season’s Order of Merit champion Micheluzzi in fourth, with the New Zealand Open and The National Tournament presented by BMW potentially on the horizon for the Victorian in a bid to guarantee his card on the DP World Tour again for next season.

Kobori admitting he is not one to ignore the points list with results taking care of delivering his desired result.

“I definitely have a look at it for sure, it’s one of those things where you’ve got New Zealand Open coming up so you know you can’t really set anything in stone,” he said.

“All you have to do is keep playing good golf and the better you play put here, the more learnings you can have out here, the better chance you can have at New Zealand Open.”

ORDER OF MERIT TOP-10
1 Min Woo Lee, 1,044.00 (points), 2 (events played)
2 Kazuma Kobori, 726.93, 9
3 Brett Coletta, 556.54, 12
4 David Micheluzzi, 359.40, 5
5 Ben Eccles, 358.35, 14
6 Jak Carter, 329.41, 14
7 Adam Scott, 326.67, 2
8 Kerry Mountcastle, 316.79, 15
9 Marc Leishman, 314.93, 2
10 Lachlan Barker, 303.74, 14