Deyen Lawson will use the framework of some of the best players in world golf as he makes a temporary return to the teaching ranks under Todd Sleep at The Glades driving range on the Gold Coast.
With the resumption of the European Tour schedule continuing to be a fluid proposition, Lawson has decided to put the traineeship he completed at Curlewis Golf Club in Victoria to good use, assisting Sleep in the shop and making himself available to give lessons.
With his first lessons booked in this week with Glades members and juniors eager to learn from a European Tour player, Lawson will highlight what the finest swingers of the golf club have in common and how golfers at every level can incorporate those elements into their own games.
“Being around a lot of really, really good players, none of them swing it the same but there are a couple of things in either set-up or impact position that 99.9 per cent of really good players do,” said Lawson, who earned a European Tour card at Qualifying School in 2018 and was tied for 10th at the 2019 Australian Open.
“If someone isn’t doing that I’ll try to see why they’re not doing that and keep it simple to try and get them in that position, whether it be through grip, set-up or something else and then take it from there.
“I’ve always been pretty good at communicating. I think I’m reasonable at reading people too and the way they like to learn when it comes to the golf swing.
“Some people are visual, some people are mental, some people like seeing their swing, some people don’t. I’ve had five years of being around coaches and some of the best players in the world and everybody is different.
“There are so many different ways to be taught and with the golf swing there is no one right way.”
Determined to return to life on tour as soon as it is safe to do so, Lawson will continue to work on his own game in between commitments at the TS Golf Academy.
Manning the shop on Sundays and available to give lessons during the week, Lawson said even with his practice schedule it is a workload that he is used to.
Having begun his traineeship under Drew Robertson at Curlewis, Lawson’s responsibilities grew prior to David and Lyndsay Sharpe buying the club and, despite the hours, now values what it taught him about the inner workings of a golf club.
“Ever since I was 15 I worked two part-time jobs or was doing my traineeship or played full-time so I felt like I needed to do something,” Lawson said of his decision to get back in the shop.
“Last year I was in Europe for 33 weeks and played six or eight events here and in between you’re practising. For me to go back to work one day and do a bit of coaching, it doesn’t really feel like that much.
“At the start of my traineeship I was doing Saturdays and Sundays from 6am-6pm.
“When Lyndsay and David Sharpe bought the club I went from doing Saturdays by myself from 6am-6pm with 200 in the comp to be able to do what a trainee should do.
“There was around two months where we didn’t have a manager or a Head Professional so I was kind of running everything and doing silly amounts of hours. It was good in the sense that I could see how everything at a golf club works.
“Then when Lyndsay and David took over, who have a lot of successful businesses, it was good to be able to see the way they operate and why they have so many successful businesses.”
As for taking on a position as a Head Professional himself in future, Lawson didn’t rule it out completely but has his sights set on a return to the tour, whenever that might be.
“I can’t imagine it,” Lawson said when asked whether he will return to Europe this year. “Maybe this time next year.
“Until players from every country can travel it’s hard to see how you could have an event.
“If you’re from Italy and you’ve got status but you’re not allowed to travel then you can’t really have a tournament. That’s not fair on them.
“I wouldn’t say no (to a Head Professional position) but at the moment I love playing and I love competing.
“I know where my game stands and there’s still a lot I would like to fulfil in playing.”
Born in Queensland in the 1950s. Junior members at Virginia Golf Club. Coached by PGA Immortal Charlie Earp. Breakthrough victories at the West Lakes Classic. Major champions.
The shared history of Greg Norman and Wayne Grady is extensive yet their personalities could hardly be more different and now they face off one more time in our ongoing quest to identify Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
As Norman ascended to the very top of world golf with a single-mindedness that drove his success during both his playing career and then into the Great White Shark business empire, Grady wasn’t afraid to sample the good life in his 30-year playing career.
While Norman mingled with presidents and kings of business, Grady always maintained a connection to the common man, best evidenced by the proclamation he made following his 1990 US PGA Championship victory at Shoal Creek: “You bloody beauty.”
Only one player in history has spent more time at No.1 than Norman’s 331-week reign yet he finished his career with only one more major championship than Grady.
“Maybe he wanted it too much. Maybe it was the pressure he placed on himself,” Grady reflected in a 2013 interview with the Courier-Mail.
While the numbers lean heavily in Norman’s favour, Grady’s personality meant that he was never intimidated by Norman on the golf course.
A two-time winner of the Australian PGA Championship, Grady and Norman were locked together at the top at the end of 72 holes of the 1988 Australian PGA at Riverside Oaks, Grady prevailing at the fourth playoff hole.
Eight months later they were pitted against each other and Mark Calcavecchia in a playoff to decide the winner of the 1989 Open Championship, the Queensland pair vanquished by the American in the four-hole decider.
Grady would have his major moment the following year while Norman’s extraordinary career was highlighted by his twin British Open victories in 1986 and 1993.
A force of nature who inspired countless Aussies to take up the game throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, Norman’s influence on Australian golf may never be truly measured to its fullest extent, his 89 career wins at the very highest level a tally few can comprehend.
Greg Norman
Career wins: 89
Major wins: 2 (British Open 1986, 1993)
PGA TOUR wins: 20
Australasian Tour wins: 32
Australian Open: Won (1980, 1985, 1987, 1995, 1996)
Australian PGA: Won (1984, 1985)
Wayne Grady
Career wins: 10
Major wins: 1 (US PGA Championship 1990)
PGA TOUR wins: 2
Australasian Tour wins: 3
Australian Open: 2nd (1996)
Australian PGA: Won (1988, 1991)
Two quiet-achieving Queenslanders, Karrie Webb and Peter Senior made their presence known by simply stacking up trophy after trophy both here and abroad.
A shy girl from Ayr in central Queensland, Webb burst into the consciousness of world golf when at just 20 years of age she claimed the Weetabix Women’s British Open. Five years later she had fulfilled the criteria to be elevated into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Senior too wasted little time asserting himself on the professional ranks – he won the 1979 South Australian Open a year after turning pro – yet for the majority of his career carried himself as the underdog who ground down the best players on the planet on a regular basis.
Aussie golf fans must now choose between two of our most revered figures to decide who will advance to the quarter-finals in our search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
Webb moved into the second round by winning the vote against PGA pioneer Eric Cremin while Senior advanced at the expense of Mike Clayton, two of Queensland’s finest products now pitted against each other for a place in the final 16.
When Webb turned 25 on December 21, 1999 she had already accumulated 16 wins on the LPGA Tour including her first major at the du Maurier Classic earlier that year yet over the following two years she would embark on a run of success that rivalled peak Tiger Woods.
As Woods completed the ‘Tiger Slam’ with victory at the 2001 US Masters, Webb herself was in the midst of a period in which she would claim four majors among 10 LPGA Tour victories, a run that prompted fellow Hall of Famer Nancy Lopez to declare that Webb had established herself “as the Tiger Woods of women’s golf”.
Except for the fanfare.
On home soil she was next to unbeatable, winning the Australian Ladies Masters four years in a row from 1998-2001 and winning the 2000 and 2002 Women’s Australian Open, virtually every round an exhibition of flawless execution.
Like Webb, Senior’s summers were spent out of the limelight right up until the point that he emerged from Greg Norman’s shadow to slip on yet another yellow jacket at Huntingdale or raise the Joe Kirkwood Cup into the air.
With the broomstick putter now protruding from the top of his golf bag, Senior went on a run in 1989 that stands as one of the most dominant performances ever seen in Australian golf.
A courageous approach at the 71st hole at Riverside Oaks saw Senior claim the Australian PGA by a stroke from American Jim Benepe. Three weeks later he destroyed a stellar Australian Open field by seven strokes at Kingston Heath and then seven days on finished five strokes clear of Norman to win the Johnnie Walker Classic at Royal Melbourne and complete the ‘Triple Crown’.
While that brilliant burst lives long in the memory Senior’s greatest accomplishment is to have won in every decade for the past 50 years and completing the post-50 ‘Triple Crown’ when he won the 2015 Australian Masters at 56 years of age.
Karrie Webb
Career wins: 57
Major wins: 7 (1999 du Maurier Classic, 2000 Nabisco Championship, US Women’s Open, 2001 McDonald’s LPGA Championship, US Women’s Open, 2002 Weetabix Women’s British Open, 2006 Kraft Nabisco Championship)
LPGA Tour wins: 41
Women’s Australian Open: Won (2000, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2014)
Australian Ladies Masters: Won (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2013)
Peter Senior
Career wins: 34
European Tour wins: 4
Australasian Tour wins: 21
Australian Open: Won (1989, 2012)
Australian PGA: Won (1989, 2003, 2010)
Joining Melbourne’s sporting festival in the early months of the year is just one idea Aussie icon Ian Baker-Finch has put forward as the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia begins to plot a revamped summer schedule.
Speaking on RSN’s Breakfast Club on Thursday morning, Baker-Finch fully endorsed the return to a wrap-around schedule starting this year, a move that was announced by the PGA of Australia last Sunday.
That announcement also locked in the Australian PGA Championship to be played at Royal Queensland Golf Club from December 3-6 and Baker-Finch, a PGA of Australia board member, is excited by the opportunities on offer in the post-Christmas half of the season.
Given Melbourne’s history of hosting some of Australia’s biggest tournaments during the halcyon days on the 1980s and 1990s and the and the influx of tourists attending the Australian Open tennis and F1 Grand Prix each year, Baker-Finch believes the rebirth of two old favourites would reinvigorate the Aussie summer.
“I like the fact that maybe we can have a couple of tournaments in Melbourne around the Australian Open tennis,” said Baker-Finch, who won the 1985 Victorian Open at Yarra Yarra Golf Club and the 1988 Australian Masters at Huntingdale and is a PGA of Australia board member.
“Really utilise our great weather in Australia – and especially Melbourne – in that January-February time.
“I would really love to see a return of the Australian Masters. We’re also looking at a potential Australian Players Championship, another event that we used to have.
“The Vic Open is a sensational new tournament where we have the best women players in the world alongside the best men down there at Thirteenth Beach.
“I definitely think there’s room for more events and more events including the women. There are lots of opportunities for sure.
“There’s a terminology that they use called the wrap-around season which means it doesn’t necessarily run across a calendar year.
“That’s what they do in the US and we used to do that in Australia. We used to finish our tournaments in late February, early March before everyone ventured off to the northern hemisphere to play through their summer and we’re going to do that again.
“We’re going to set up the Australian tour to finish in March which I think is a great idea. We’ve got plenty of time to run tournaments in January-February-March in our great weather.
“This (the coronavirus pandemic) really was the impetus in doing that because we’re not sure whether we’ll be able to play any golf as we know it until later in the year and maybe not even until 2021.”
With the Australian PGA locked in for the first weekend of December and the US Masters to conclude on November 15, Baker-Finch expects the Australian Open to follow the week after PGA if not early in the new year.
“We’re hoping the final quarter of the year will return to normal – not just for golf, but for all of us,” Baker-Finch said on RSN.
“We’re going to play the Australian PGA at Royal Queensland Golf Club in Brisbane in the first week of December. I would imagine that the Australian Open would go the week following that if we are able to play golf with a crowd.
“If we can’t, the Australian Open may even go later and go into February next year.”
By the time they were teenagers, both Jan Stephenson and Marc Leishman were attracting attention. Now the pair face off for a place in the quarter-finals in our continuing search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
Stephenson advanced to the second round with a convincing decision over Randall Vines while Leishman’s spot in Round 2 was secured when he accounted for Nick O’Hern in their first-round clash.
Born in Newcastle, Stephenson first displayed her prodigious ability with victory at the 1964 New South Wales Schoolgirl championships at just 12 years of age. She would successfully defend that title in each of the next four years.
The son of seven-time Warrnambool club champion Paul Leishman, Marc showed that he had been paying close attention to his old man and possessed natural ability all of his own when he too added his name to the honour board at just 13 years of age.
The game is littered with junior phenoms who found it difficult to transition to the professional ranks but both Stephenson and Leishman continued on their upward trajectories as they advanced beyond the amateur ranks.
Stephenson turned professional in 1973 and won the Wills Australian Open as a 21-year-old, joining the LPGA Tour a year later as her rapid ascension gained a global following.
Her breakthrough win in the US came in February 1976 at the Sarah Coventry Naples Classic yet her lasting legacy to Australian golf was becoming the first Aussie female to win a major at the Peter Jackson Classic in 1981.
It would be the first of three major triumphs for Stephenson among her total of 16 LPGA Tour wins to go with two Australian Open titles, a Ladies European Tour victory and two wins in Japan.
Elevated to the World Golf Hall of Fame last year, off the golf course Stephenson has been a long-time ambassador for blind and disabled golf through her association with ISPS HANDA and in 2018 was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for her service to golf and to not-for-profit organisations.
Leishman too has contributed significantly to charitable organisations through his Begin Again Foundation established in 2015 and is building a resume on the golf course that puts him among our very best.
Renowned for his ability to go super-low in his early days as a professional, Leishman won locally and in Korea before taking his game to the United States, advancing to the PGA TOUR in 2009 and promptly claiming the Rookie of the Year award.
The most recent of his five PGA TOUR wins came at the Farmers Insurance Open in January but despite a number of close calls the 36-year-old is yet to land that tournament win that cements his place in history.
Runner-up in a three-man playoff at The Open Championship in 2015, Leishman was tied for fourth when Adam Scott triumphed at the 2013 Masters and has two further top-six finishes at The Open.
Back home he finished runner-up behind good friend Cameron Smith at the 2018 Australian PGA Championship and is only top 10 finish at the Australian Open came last year at The Australian Golf Club.
Time is on his side and as that teenager showed at home in Warrnambool, he is not afraid of taking on the big boys.
Jan Stephenson
Career wins: 26
Major wins: 3 (1981 Peter Jackson Classic, 1982 LPGA Championship, 1983 US Women’s Open)
LPGA Tour wins: 16
Women’s Australian Open: Won (1973, 1977)
Legends Tour wins: 3
Marc Leishman
Career wins: 12
PGA TOUR wins: 5
Australasian Tour wins: 4 (Von Nida Tour)
Australian Open: T10 (2019)
Australian PGA: 2nd (2018)
Adam Scott will make a return to live golf on Friday, although the only way to watch him will be via Instagram.
Two weeks after the 14-time PGA TOUR winner sent the Sunshine Coast into a frenzy by popping in to play at Maleny Golf Club in the hinterland, Scott has agreed to a return visit that will be broadcast to the world.
Scott and long-time friend, PGA Professional and Maleny General Manager Wayne Perske will face off at the picturesque 18-hole layout from 8am on Friday morning, Perske joking that he might need a five-shot handicap to keep pace with the 2013 Masters champion.
With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic making crowd attendance impossible, Scott’s Maleny match will be shown via his Instagram account (@adamscottofficial) and give Aussie golf fans a rare opportunity to watch live golf featuring one of our very best.
Adam Scott backswing, 340 meter drive. https://t.co/SPar2QsxQm via @YouTube
— Wayne Perske (@Wayneperske) April 19, 2020
“He came up on Tuesday with his dad for a game and asked whether we could do an Instagram Live match on the back nine on Friday morning,” said Perske, a former winner on the Japan Golf Tour.
“I’m thinking there’ll be quite a few people logging on to watch and I’m sure it will end up on YouTube afterwards.
“I don’t know why he chose me but it’s going to be pretty cool.
“We used to play in a few amateur events together but I was 20 and he was 15 at the time. He’ll say that I beat him a few times but that’s probably what a 20-year-old should do to a 15-year-old.”
As he was playing his second round at Maleny on Tuesday, Scott received national recognition for a story by renowned journalist Roy Masters in the Sydney Morning Herald that proclaimed the Queenslander as the winner of the “lockdown act of kindness” award.
Ross Campbell’s daughter Leigh reached out to Scott as her father – suffering with seven brain tumours – believes that he and Adam are best mates and regularly play together at Riverside Oaks in Sydney’s north-west.
Given their relationship, Ross was not at all surprised by Adam’s phone call but for his wife, Pam, it was a moment in time that she will cherish forever.
“Many high-profile athletes must get so many requests to put themselves out, yet Adam responded to my daughter’s request straight away,” Pam told the Sydney Morning Herald.
“The video he sent also shows him practising putting and Ross can watch it any time he feels inclined.”
Wayne Perske has seen it many times before.
Adam Scott pitching. https://t.co/ggkemYnf0A via @YouTube
— Wayne Perske (@Wayneperske) April 20, 2020
Upon his return to Australia last month Scott reached out to Perske and Caloundra Golf Club PGA Professional Tom Arnott asking in what ways he could help.
Perske suggested the publicity generated by a visit to the club would do wonders; Arnott had to politely decline when Scott offered to come and help clean golf carts due to a shortage of staff.
“That’s the kind of stuff Adam does all the time and most of the time no one ever finds out about it,” adds Perske.
“The lady obviously wanted to give him some credit for what he did but he doesn’t do it for any fanfare or accolades.
“A bloke saw that I played with Adam the other day. He sent a message asking whether I could ask Adam to send a video message to his 9-year-old son who just idolises Adam.
“He didn’t hesitate. He spent 30 seconds wishing the kid a happy birthday, thanking him for his support and encouraging him to keep practising.
“He does that stuff all the time without batting an eyelid.”
A portrait of Scott by Perske’s wife Vanessa that was entered into the 2014 Archibald Prize hangs in the modest clubhouse at Maleny and now also boasts the autograph of the subject.
When he played two weeks ago Scott hit a soaring 2-iron 268 metres from the 10th tee to the 12th green that landed within eight inches of the hole, leaving those who witnessed it with a story to tell every time they step onto that tee box.
Although in awe of the shot himself, Perske has no doubt there will be something extra special to come out of their match on Friday.
“It went 100 stories in the air and just dropped down beside the hole,” Perske recalled.
“All the people here are on such a high because they never thought something like that would happen.
“He’s our honorary touring professional at the moment and the Instagram Live match is going to be huge for Maleny Golf Club.
“I think we’ll see him up here fairly often between now and when he goes back to the States so he might do something even more special by then.”
A diminutive giant of Australian golf and an Asian pioneer go head-to-head as Norman von Nida and Brian Jones face off in our latest match in search of Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
Such are the stories that legends share of ‘The Von’ that it is easy to remember the character ahead of the accomplishments of Norman von Nida.
Whether giving bunker lessons to the likes of Gary Player and Peter Thomson or – with failing eyesight – instructing Nick Faldo to make a swing adjustment simply by listening to the sound the ball made on the clubface, von Nida’s impact on the game in this country was lengthy and varied.
From his days as a teenager caddying in Brisbane, von Nida regularly spent time amongst golf royalty.
He caddied for Walter Hagen at just 14 years of age and at 22 beat the newly crowned British Open champion Gene Sarazen after challenging him to a 50-pound winner-takes-all match.
Although small in stature, von Nida’s powerful arms propelled him to some 100 wins around the world and he was a trailblazer for Australians playing in Europe, encouraging golfers such as Thomson to also make the long journey to opportunity.
Although he had success prior to World War II – he was twice runner-up to Jim Ferrier in the 1938 and 1939 Australian Open – it would be when the war ended that von Nida became a dominant force in both Australia and Europe.
In 1947 he won seven times in Europe and on home soil was close to unbeatable in our major events.
Between 1946 and 1951 he won the Australian PGA Championship on four occasions – disposing of first Eric Cremin and then Ossie Pickworth 6&5 in the final in successive years in ’50 and ’51 and in a seven-year span between 1949 and 1955 either won or was runner-up at the Australian Open every year, Pickworth, Thomson and Bobby Locke the only men to deny him in that time.
A generation of Australian players – and even the great Jack Nicklaus – turned to ‘The Von’ for advice but above all else he showed that Australian golfers should never be afraid to pit their talents against the best the world could throw at them.
Like von Nida, Jones helped to establish a new frontier for Aussie golfers.
Born in Sydney, Jones won the Western Australian Open the year before turning professional in 1971 and would soon after forge a successful career throughout Asia.
He won the 1972 Indian Open – a title he would claim again five years later – but it was in Japan where he would find his greatest success.
The first of 11 individual titles in Japan came at the 1977 KBC Augusta tournament and he would amass close to Y470 million in career earnings in Japan alone, his final triumph in the Land of the Rising Sun recorded at the 1993 Sapporo Tokyu Open.
A winner of three PGA Tour of Australasia events, Jones’ came closest to claiming one of our most prestigious titles at the 1980 Australian Open.
The third-round leader, Jones led Greg Norman by a stroke with six holes to play at The Lakes Golf Club but bogeys at 15, 16 and 17 opened the door for Norman to go on and record a one-stroke win.
In this afternoon’s match, five-time US PGA Tour winner Marc Leishman goes up against famed Tiger tamer Nick O’Hern.
Yet to record a major victory on home soil, Leishman has established himself as one of our most consistent performers on the world stage and a regular member of the International team at the Presidents Cup.
The only player to defeat Tiger Woods twice in match play competition, O’Hern’s best year was in 2006 when he was top-10 at the US Open and won the Australian PGA Championship at Coolum by holing a bunker shot from the back of the 18th green at the second playoff hole.
Match 23 | @CocaColaAmatil Australia's Greatest Golfer ?️
— PGA of Australia (@PGAofAustralia) April 28, 2020
Follow @PGAofAustralia & https://t.co/8tUxMHCgi8 to vote as we give you the chance to vote for our best Aussie in a decorated class of 64 greats.
Norman von Nida
Career wins: 48
European Tour wins: 14
Australasian Tour wins: 32
Australian Open: Won (1950, 1952, 1953)
Australian PGA: Won (1946, 1948, 1950, 1951)
Brian Jones
Career wins: 21
Japan Tour wins: 11
Australasian Tour wins: 3
Australian Open: 2nd (1980)
Marc Leishman
Career wins: 12
PGA TOUR wins: 5
Australasian Tour wins: 4 (Von Nida Tour)
Australian Open: T10 (2019)
Australian PGA: 2nd (2018)
Nick O’Hern
Career wins: 5
Australasian Tour wins: 2
Australian Open: 2nd (1999, 2005, 2007)
Australian PGA: Won (2006)
They took rather different approaches but Peter Senior and Michael Clayton both left an indelible impression on Australian Golf; they meet in our latest showdown to find Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
Chalk and cheese have got nothing on Peter Senior and Michael Clayton.
Two of Australian golf’s most prominent figures of the 1980s and 1990s, it is safe to say that the pair approached professional golf in vastly different ways.
Senior was the methodical grinder, devoid of emotion as he regularly put away longer hitters with bigger profiles and the egos to match.
Clayton took a more artistic approach to his golf, an uber-talented junior who came into the pro ranks unafraid to either celebrate his triumphs or express his displeasure.
Where Senior’s playing career is now in its sixth decade, Clayton resembled a comet in the sky, a burst of brilliance before pursuing careers in both journalism and course design with great success.
Perhaps it was Senior’s combination of short stature and unassuming ways that endeared him so greatly to the Australian public.
Turning professional in 1978, the first of Senior’s 21 wins on the PGA Tour of Australasia came at the 1979 Dunhill Australian Open; his most recent a defeat of rising American amateur Bryson DeChambeau, John Senden and Andrew Evans at the 2015 Uniqlo Masters.
For those counting at home, that’s 36 years of tournament success.
A three-time winner in 1987, Senior completed a clean-sweep of Australia’s three biggest events in 1989 when he put the broomstick putter in play for the first time, an instrument he would wield to great effect and which would become synonymous with Senior’s play.
He won the Australian PGA Championship, Australian Open and Johnnie Walker Classic in quick succession with a cumulative winning margin for the Open and Johnnie Walker Classic played in consecutive weeks an astonishing 12 strokes.
That performance elevated Senior inside the top 30 in the world and earned his one and only invitation from Augusta National Golf Club to play The Masters the following year.
Senior’s international success came predominantly in Europe where he had four victories and in Japan where he triumphed on three occasions.
Seventh on the European Tour Order of Merit in 1987, Senior did earn a PGA TOUR card for the 1986 season but after struggling to adjust to the American style of play returned to Europe midway through the year.
In the early 1990s Senior was a regular fixture near the top of the leaderboard at The Open Championship, his best finish a tie for fourth in 1993 as he finished inside the top-20 each year from 1991-1994.
Now one of the most respected voices in Australian golf and a prominent figure in architecture around the world, Michael Clayton emerged in the late 1970s as a Melbourne amateur of great promise.
Winner of the 1977 and 1981 Victorian Amateur, Clayton won the 1978 Australian Amateur 1 up over Tony Gresham at Royal Queensland, a course he would go on to redesign some 30 years later.
When he turned professional in 1981 Clayton immediately joined the PGA Tour of Australasia and won for the first time a year later at a star-studded Victorian Open at Metropolitan.
Clayton played for more than a decade on the European Tour with his sole win coming at the 1984 Timex Open, a win that pushed him to a career-high finish of 18th on the moneylist.
Six years later Clayton almost added a second win to his resume but was edged out by fellow Aussie Rodger Davis at the seventh playoff hole of the Bob Hope British Classic.
Like Senior, when Clayton’s confidence was up he could rival anyone in Australian golf, claiming both the 1994 Heineken Classic and Coolum Classic and finishing top three in the opening two events of 1995 to rise to a career-high of 91 in the world.
Peter Senior
Career wins: 34
European Tour wins: 4
Australasian Tour wins: 21
Australian Open: Won (1989, 2012)
Australian PGA: Won (1989, 2003, 2010)
Michael Clayton
Career wins: 8
European Tour wins: 1
Australasian Tour wins: 6
Australian Open: T2 (1993)
Australian PGA: T6 (1991)
They won the first two Australian Opens of the 1960s and were giants of Australian golf for a decade; Bruce Devlin faces Frank Phillips in the latest match in the search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
Given the limitations – and expense – of international travel in the 1960s, the vast number of Australian golfers had to wait until the world’s best arrived on our shores to get a complete measure of their game.
When they did, Bruce Devlin and Frank Phillips had no hesitation in showing them just how strong Australian golf was.
Born in Adelaide, Devlin delivered one of the most spectacular entries to professional golf the game has ever seen in this country.
Victorious at the 1959 Australian Amateur and a member of the 1958 Australian team that won the Eisenhower Trophy, Devlin claimed the 1960 Australian Open ahead of fellow amateur Ted Ball at Lake Karrinyup, Devlin and Ball members of the Australian team that finished second behind a Jack Nicklaus-led US team at the 1960 Eisenhower trophy.
Soon enough the lure of America proved too great and Devlin would win eight times and miss out in playoffs on three separate occasions.
His first win came by four strokes at the 1964 St Petersburg Open Invitational and he won two times in a season three times in 1966, 1970 and 1972.
Ten years after his shock Australian Open win, Devlin teamed up with great mate David Graham to spank the rest of the world at the 1970 World Cup in Argentina, finishing 10 shots clear of local favourites Roberto De Vicenzo and Vicente Fernández and 19 ahead of third-placed South Africa.
In addition to his Australian Open win Devlin was winner of the Australian PGA Championship in consecutive years in 1969-70 and in 1963 alone triumphed at the New Zealand Open, Queensland Open, Victorian Open, Adelaide Advertiser Tournament (in a tie with Phillips), Wills Classic and Caltex Tournament.
From 1964 until 1976 Devlin finished in the top 10 at The Masters five times and was top 20 on five further occasions and in 1965 – where he was tied for 15th at Augusta – Devlin finished no worse than a tie for eighth in the other three majors.
Tied for 18th in 1962 and 12th in 1963 at The Open Championship, Phillips was not a regular fixture in golf’s grandest events, preferring to dominate the Australasian and Asian circuits.
Hailing from the Southern Highlands south of Sydney, Phillips broke through to win the 1955 New Zealand PGA Championship a year after joining the professional ranks but came to prominence with his victory at the 1957 Australian Open at Kingston Heath.
A year earlier Phillips had spent three months travelling Europe with Norman von Nida and it helped to solidify the lanky Phillips’ play, holding off South African legend Gary Player both in 1957 and in his second Australian Open victory in 1961 at Victoria Golf Club.
Winner of the New South Wales Open four times, Phillips accrued an impressive list of national open titles throughout Asia, twice winning the Singapore Open and Hong Kong Open crowns as well as victories in the Philippines and Malaysia.
Match 16 | Australia’s Greatest Golfer ?️
— PGA of Australia (@PGAofAustralia) April 23, 2020
They won the first two Australian Opens of the 1960s and were giants of Australian golf for a decade; Bruce Devlin faces Frank Phillips in the latest match in the search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
Bruce Devlin
Career wins: 31
PGA TOUR wins: 8
Australasian Tour wins: 19
Australian Open: Won (1960)
Australian PGA: Won (1969, 1970)
Frank Phillips
Career wins: 32
Australasian Tour wins: 23
Asian Golf Circuit wins: 7
Australian Open: Won (1957, 1961)
Australian PGA: 2nd (1961, 1965)
Revered as much for their knockabout personalities as their accomplishments on the golf course, Stuart Appleby and Ian Stanley face off in the latest match of our search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
Some golfers are remembered for what they do on the golf course, others for the way that they do it.
When evaluating the careers of Stuart Appleby and Ian Stanley it’s hard to look past the personalities to their actual accomplishments.
Both men had their grounding on the Melbourne sandbelt, Stanley becoming a much-loved figure at Huntingdale Golf Club and Appleby joining Yarra Yarra Golf Club after making the move down from Cohuna on the Murray River.
A two-time Victorian Junior champion, Stanley completed a three-year apprenticeship under Geoff Flanagan at Huntingdale and then in 1975 recorded his first win as a professional in, of all places, Papua New Guinea. Also that year Stanley was joint winner of the Martini International along with Christy O’Connor and won the Queensland Open by four strokes, the first of eight wins on the PGA Tour of Australasia.
Runner-up at the 1974 Australian PGA Championship when he lost an 18-hole playoff with Billy Dunk by a single stroke, Stanley’s greatest accomplishments on the course arguably came after his 50th birthday.
Shortly after joining the seniors ranks ‘Stan the Man’ won the 1998 Australian Senior PGA Championship and in 2001 claimed the Senior British Open, defeating New Zealand’s Bob Charles in a playoff in a field that boasted Jack Nicklaus, Dave Stockton and Gary Player.
The winner of 30 professional events in his career, it was Stanley’s charitable efforts following the accident to good friend Jack Newton in 1983 that endeared him to everyone within Australian golf.
He travelled the country raising money for the Jack Newton Trust and would later establish Tee Up for Kids that raises money for underprivileged kids in Victoria, passing away after a long battle with cancer in July 2018 at age 69.
Appleby too has used his profile to help others, establishing the Stuart Appleby Junior Golf foundation to aid the development of juniors in Victoria.
Winner of the 1991 Queensland Open as an amateur, Appleby turned professional the following year, his first win as a bona fide pro coming at the 1994 Victorian PGA Championship.
In 1995 Appleby made the move to the United States and made an instant impression, winning his first event on the then Nike Tour and adding a second title in October, finishing fifth on the moneylist to earn promotion to the PGA Tour.
It only took until Appleby’s second year on tour to earn his breakthrough PGA TOUR title at the 1997 Honda Classic but there would be two feats in particular that would make Appleby a household name.
Appleby had rounds of 62 and 63 in his victory at the 2003 Las Vegas Invitational which earned a return to the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii in 2004, Appleby winning three years in succession to be dubbed the ‘King of Kapalua’.
The most recent of Appleby’s nine PGA TOUR wins came at the now-defunct Greenbrier Classic in 2010 and it was one for the record books, becoming just the fifth player to shoot 59 in a PGA TOUR event – in the final round no less – to win by a shot. Later that year he was awarded PGA TOUR Comeback Player of the Year.
Appleby boasts a top-10 finish in each of golf’s four majors, the closest he came to the trophy coming at the 2002 Open Championship when he and fellow Aussie Steve Elkington finished one shot behind Ernie Els in the four-hole aggregate playoff.
Within Australia Appleby has claimed three of our most enduring tournaments, the 1998 Coolum Classic, 2001 Australian Open and 2010 Australian Masters.
Stuart Appleby
Career wins: 17
PGA TOUR wins: 9
Australasian Tour wins: 3
Australian Open: Won (2001)
Australian PGA: T2 (1997)
Ian Stanley
Career wins: 30
European Tour wins: 1
Seniors Tour wins: 3
Australasian Tour wins: 19
Australian Open: T3 (1975)
Australian PGA: 2nd (1974)