A polarising figure for the single-minded way in which he approached his pursuit of golf perfection, David Graham constantly pushed beyond what many thought was previously possible.

At 16 years of age he became the youngest member of the Victorian PGA and 19 years later won the second of his two major championships, creating another slice of Australian golf history.

Winner of the 1979 US PGA Championship, Graham remains the only Australian to win two of America’s three majors, the manner in which he won the 1981 US Open at famed Merion Golf Club drawing high praise from players and the media.

Celebrated golf writer Herbert Warren Wind described the final round in which Graham barely missed a shot over the entire 18 holes as “a genuinely memorable performance. It has been a long time since we last saw a golfer play such brilliant, forceful, technically pure shots on the final holes of the Open.”

Such was Graham’s play on that Sunday that it drew comparisons with the legendary Ben Hogan, Hogan calling Graham himself to congratulate the first Australian winner of the US Open for “one of the best rounds of golf I have ever seen”.

Winner of the 1977 Australian Open, Graham set his sights early on taking his game to the world, his travels reflected in another unique slice of history.

Graham remains one of only five players along with Gary Player, Hale Irwin, Bernhard Langer and Justin Rose to win on six continents, his eight PGA TOUR wins and three in Europe supplemented by victories in Japan, Brazil and South Africa among many others.

Three times Graham was victorious in Japan, a nation that has proven to be a happy hunting ground for his opponent today, Brad Kennedy.

Winner of the New Zealand Open for a second time in March that elevated him to a career-high world ranking of 101, Kennedy took time to find his feet after turning professional in 1994.

In 2002 he finished fourth at the Volvo China Open and was runner-up at the European Tour’s Carlsberg Malaysian Open a year later.

His best year in Europe was in 2004 when Kennedy finished 96th on the Order of Merit but it has been in Japan and in Australia where most of his 13 tournament victories have come.

The 45-year-old’s first win on the Japan Golf Tour came at the 2012 Gateway to the Open Mizuno Open which he followed up a year later with a second title at the Kansai Open Golf Championship.

There was a five-year wait until his third Japan Golf Tour win at the 2018 Shigeo Nagashima Invitational Sega Sammy Cup and last year he narrowly missed out on a fourth, losing to Ryo Ishikawa in a playoff at the season-ending Golf Nippon Series JT Cup.

Regarded as one of Australia’s best putters of recent years, Kennedy has also enjoyed great success in New Zealand, winning their national Open twice, losing another in a playoff and taking out the 2016 New Zealand PGA Championship.

David Graham
Career wins: 38
Major wins: 2 (1979 US PGA Championship, 1981 US Open)
Australasian Tour wins: 6
Australian Open: Won (1977)

Brad Kennedy
Career wins: 13
Major wins: Nil
Australasian Tour wins: 5
Australian Open: T21 (2009)
Australian PGA: T4 (2012)