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One blazed a trail for the promotion of women’s sport; the other constructed an impressive career largely out of the limelight. Jan Stephenson and Randall Vines have been drawn against each other in match six of Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
Jan Stephenson’s elevation into the World Golf Hall of Fame last year was the punctuation mark the Aussie icon needed on her playing career.
A product of Newcastle north of Sydney, Stephenson was a dominant force within the junior ranks and soon started pitting her skills against professionals with far greater experience.
Her athleticism and aggressive way of playing marked her as something out of the ordinary and in her first year as a professional claimed the 1973 Wills Australian Ladies Open.
She joined the LPGA Tour the following year and her 16 career wins still sees her ranked 35th for all-time wins on the LPGA Tour.
Three of those 16 victories were major championships yet it was Stephenson’s exploits off the golf course that brought her – and women’s golf – to the attention of the broader public.
First was the cover of Sport Magazine’s ‘Sex In Sports’ issue in May 1977, a brief romance with Donald Trump, a calendar and that now infamous photo of Stephenson in a bathtub covered by nothing more than golf balls.
It simultaneously catapulted Stephenson and the LPGA Tour itself into a new level of consciousness within the sporting world and in many ways overshadowed what she accomplished in her career.
Inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1985, Stephenson won a total of 26 professional tournaments and her remarkable life has been mooted as a potential Hollywood movie with Margot Robbie in the lead role.
The career of Randall Vines could not have been a greater contrast.
The Brisbane native turned professional in 1966 and immediately took his talents to Europe. In 1967 he was runner-up at the Spanish Open and played in the Open Championship for the first time after successfully navigating qualifying.
In September that year – and boosted by an ace at the par-3 eighth hole in the final round – Vines won the first of two European titles at the Swiss Open, following that up with victory at the 1968 Engadine Open also in Switzerland.
Earlier that year Vines had stunned Australian golf with a 17-stroke win at the Tasmanian Open, a victory that was considered the largest winning margin in a tournament anywhere in the world.
It was the first of nine victories in Australia, two of which were unique for the formats in which they were won.
Only Colin Johnston had previously won the Australian PGA Championship in both match play and stroke play formats, Vines equalling the feat with back-to-back wins at The Lakes (stroke play) and Bonnie Doon (match play) in 1972-73.
Vines also had the honour of representing Australia at the 1973 World Cup where he and Errol Hardvigsen finished tied for seventh.
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
Randall Vines
Career wins: 13
Major wins: Nil
Australasian Tour wins: 9
Australian PGA: Won (1972, 1973)
Australian Open: T8 (1977)
Two-time major champion David Graham is pitted against winner of 13 professional events Brad Kennedy in the fourth match of our quest to decide Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
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)
The first of our female legends enters the fray as Karrie Webb takes on two-time Australian PGA champion Eric Cremin in Match 3 to determine Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
Karrie Webb won seven major championships.
She won four of the eight majors contested in 2000-2001 and finished outside the top 10 just once in the other four, tied for 15th at the 2001 Women’s British Open.
Of Webb’s 41 career wins on the LPGA Tour 13 came across just two seasons from 1999-2000. In comparison, fellow Queenslander Greg Norman won 20 times during his career on the PGA TOUR.
The Women’s World Rankings weren’t established until February 2006, a year in which Webb played in 21 events, won five, was runner-up three times and top-10 on 13 occasions to rise as high as No.2 in the world.
If we measured our best players purely by tournament wins alone the case for Webb as our greatest ever is a compelling one.
Whether it was her naturally shy demeanour or the lack of exposure afforded women’s sport in general 20 years ago, Webb’s glittering career struggled to garner the widespread recognition within the Australian public that it undoubtedly deserved.
From the time she became the youngest ever winner of the Women’s British Open in 1995 we almost expected Webb to win every time she teed it up, and were somewhat shocked when she didn’t.
Like so many of our greats, Webb’s influence has carried through into the next generation, the establishment of the Karrie Webb Series and Scholarship providing the likes of Minjee Lee and Hannah Green with invaluable insight and exposure to the elite level of women’s professional golf whilst still amateurs finding their way.
Another prolific winner in an era of highly-talented Australian professionals was Eric Cremin.
Cremin stunned Australian golf when he claimed the 1937 Australian PGA Championship whilst still an assistant professional at The Australian Golf Club in Sydney, winning the NSW PGA that same year and both events again the following year, the only player to ever achieve the unique feat.
His playing career was stalled by World War II but when it resumed it did so in spectacular fashion.
Runner-up in the Australian PGA on seven occasions between 1946 and 1962, Cremin won the 1949 Australian Open at The Australian and was ninth at the 1951 Open Championship at Royal Portrush.
Renowned for his putting, Cremin won a host of state PGAs and Opens against the likes of Norman von Nida, Ossie Pickworth, Kel Nagle and good friend Alan Murray, the last of his 28 professional wins coming at the 1960 Adelaide Advertiser Tournament.
Australia’s Greatest Golfer | Match 3?️
— PGA of Australia (@PGAofAustralia) April 14, 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.
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)
Eric Cremin
Career wins: 28
Major wins: Nil
Australasian Tour wins: 28
Australian Open: Won (1949)
Australian PGA: Won (1937, 1938)
In the second of our matches to determine Australia’s Greatest Golfer, long-time world No.1 Greg Norman faces off against a man with wins in four successive decades, Stewart Ginn.
It would appear to be some cruel twist of irony that we put Greg Norman up against Stewart Ginn on the same date 24 years on from his most heartbreaking Masters moment as we continue our search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
It was April 14, 1996 that Norman began the final round of The Masters with a six-stroke advantage yet with all of Australia collectively holding their breath, collapsed in spectacular fashion to finish four strokes behind Nick Faldo.
A two-time British Open champion and world No.1 for an incredible 331 weeks, we have come to associate Norman’s career not by his triumphs but by the gut-wrenching defeats.
As golf fans pored over Masters highlights last week, one young US golf writer had the temerity to suggest that he had never seen Norman play a good round of golf, highlights serving as a reminder of how many majors the Great White Shark could have won in his career.
But for those few crushing defeats there were countless other rounds and tournaments where Norman played simply breathtaking golf.
His 64 in the final round of the 1993 British Open at Royal St George’s stands today as one of the best in championship history, Norman himself admitting that the only shot he mis-hit all day was a short putt at the 17th hole.
A year later Norman again put one of golf’s strongest fields to the sword, opening with a 9-under par round of 63 and setting new records for 36, 54 and 72-hole scores as he won THE PLAYERS Championship by six strokes.
Back in Australia, Norman was a tour de force from the time he won the 1976 West Lakes Classic until the 1998 Greg Norman Holden International and beyond.
Crowds rivalling that of major championships poured into Australian golf courses simply to see Norman play, his magnetism and standing in world golf helping to bring the world’s best to our shores to face the Shark in his own waters.
Former Australian Golf Union supremo Colin Phillips once said that Australian golf would surge again when the next Greg Norman came along; the truth is we may never see a force of nature of his type ever again.
As Norman emerged in the mid-1970s Stewart Ginn was established as one of the country’s finest players.
Runner-up to Randall Vines when the Australian PGA Championship reverted to a matchplay format for one year in 1973, Ginn was one of the trailblazers who forged their careers in Europe and on the Asian circuit, winning the Malaysian Open twice and on the Japan Golf Tour on one occasion.
Recording his first tournament victory at the 1983 Tasmanian Open, Ginn enjoyed success throughout the world, winning the Martini International on the European Tour, the 1979 New Zealand Open and 1992 Indian Open before embarking on a stellar senior career.
Along with Peter Thomson and Graham Marsh Ginn is one of only three Aussies to win a senior major championship, claiming the 2002 Ford Senior Players Championship, and also enjoyed victory on the European Seniors Tour, winning the 2008 Azores Senior Open, 25 years after his first professional victory.
Greg Norman
Career wins: 89
Major wins: 2 (British Open 1986, 1993)
Australasian Tour wins: 32
Australian Open: Won (1980, 1985, 1987, 1995, 1996)
Australian PGA: Won (1984, 1985)
Stewart Ginn
Career wins: 19
Senior Major wins: 1 (Senior Players Championship 2002)
Australasian Tour wins: 11
Australian Open: 6th (1981)
Australian PGA: Won (1979)
In the opening match of our search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer we pit two Peters against each other, the incomparable Peter Thomson and the irrepressible Peter McWhinney.
His moniker of ‘Five Times’ only goes part of the way to describing the extraordinary accomplishments and contribution that Peter Thomson made to the game of golf in this country.
Winner of the British Open Championship in three straight years from 1954, Thomson added a fourth in 1958 and fifth in 1965 but it was his sustained mastery of British links that remains unparalleled.
Starting with his tie for sixth in his Open Championship debut in 1951, Thomson finished outside the top 10 on just three occasions in the subsequent 21 years, either on top of the leaderboard or just one spot behind every year from 1952 until 1958.
Perhaps even more remarkable was that for many of those championships he would pen a column for The Age newspaper in Melbourne at the completion of the day’s play.
His accomplishments on the golf course included 10 national Open wins – including the Australian Open on three occasions – and the 1967 Australian PGA Championship but he was just as prolific off it.
Thomson was an acclaimed golf course architect, imprinting his design philosophy on more than 250 courses in some 30 countries, pot bunkers that are so often a feature of golf in Britain transferred to all corners of the globe.
President of the PGA of Australia from 1962 until 1994, Thomson’s influence on generations of players was profound, his legacy one of excellence and humility.
Peter McWhinney’s resume shows just one Australian tour win – the 1983 Queensland PGA Championship – and the 1996 Tsuruya Open on the Japan Golf Tour yet in a golden era for Australian golf his name was a regular feature on Aussie leaderboards.
In 1992 alone McWhinney was on the verge of completing one of the great performances in Australian tournament history yet on three separate occasions went home without the trophy.
At the Australian PGA Championship he finished three shots behind Craig Parry at Concord Golf Club, was runner-up to Steve Elkington at the Australian Open at The Lakes Golf Club and was then defeated by Mike Clayton in the final of the Australian Matchplay Championship, all in the space of just a few months.
McWhinney would finish runner-up in the Australian Open again in 1995 in dramatic fashion, Greg Norman draining a monster birdie putt at the 71st hole on his way to a two-shot victory.
Popular amongst fans for his knockabout nature, perhaps McWhinney’s greatest contribution to professional golf in Australia was leading the campaign to allow the provision of short socks to be worn during pro-am tournaments.
Peter Thomson
Career wins: 95
Major wins: 5 (British Open 1954-56, 1958, 1965)
Australasian Tour wins: 44
Australian Open: Won (1951, 1967, 1972)
Australian PGA: Won (1967)
Peter McWhinney
Career wins: 2
Major wins: Nil
Australasian Tour wins: 1 (1983 Qld PGA)
Australian Open: Runner-up (1992, 1995)
Australian PGA: Runner-up (1992)
The mantle as Australia’s Greatest Golfer will be put in the hands of the public as the PGA of Australia launches a head-to-head battle of Australia’s 64 most accomplished professionals.
To be conducted through the PGA Tour of Australasia’s Facebook page and in a matchplay-bracket formula that will see 32 first-round matches, the best players our country has seen will have to progress past fellow legends in a fan vote in order to ultimately be crowned our No.1 of all time.
Five-time British Open champion Peter Thomson has been seeded No.1 and will face Japan Tour winner and all-around larrikin Peter McWhinney in Monday’s first match.
Greg Norman, the No.2 seed, has been pitted against Stewart Ginn and third favourite Karrie Webb against two-time Australian PGA and 1949 Australian Open champion Eric Cremin in other first-round matches.
Whenever Australia’s greatest ever golfer is discussed the names Thomson, Norman and Webb come to the fore but PGA of Australia CEO Gavin Kirkman says the path to get to the final will provide some compelling matches along the way.
“What excites me the most is seeing all the different generations of golfers mixed in together and it will be interesting to see how the different generations of Australian golf fans vote over the coming weeks,” said Kirkman.
“I’ve worked in golf for the past 35 years of my life and I know myself I have had so many favourites throughout that time.
“Growing up I was a huge Greg Norman fan but when my father was alive it was Norman von Nida, Peter Thomson and Kel Nagle.
“Working in golf retail during Norman’s 331 weeks as world No.1, I saw first-hand the influence he had on the entire industry. People were flooding into pro shops wanting to buy something with the Shark logo on it and go and play nine or 18 holes.
“Then I went into a time where I got to know people such as Wayne Grady, Peter Senior and Ian Baker-Finch and they became my heroes because it was clear to me that not only were they great golfers but great people as well.
“I was fortunate to deliver so many Australian Ladies Masters titles to Karrie in my time at RACV Royal Pines Resort and you look at her playing record and in Australian golf it is unparalleled. No one has won more majors than Karrie, not to mention her other tournament victories.
“Then you move into the modern-day players such as Adam Scott and although he has only won one major to date, he is another great person who continually gives back to Australian golf.
“Add in those guys slightly younger than Adam such as Jason Day, Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith and I am really excited to see how that crop develops and the careers they put together.
“It’s an incredible list of our highest-achieving golfers and I’m sure as we progress everyone is going to have their own favourites who they want to vote for.”
An independent panel of golf experts has assembled a list of 64 of our greatest ever golfers. Each player has been seeded and placed into four brackets.
Each day a golfer will go head-to-head with another of our country’s stars.
The two-month-long competition comprises of 63 matches across 69 days.
Week 1 Matches
Monday: Peter Thomson v Peter McWhinney
Tuesday: Greg Norman v Stewart Ginn
Wednesday: Karrie Webb v Eric Cremin
Thursday: David Graham v Brad Kennedy
Friday: Kel Nagle v Roger Mackay
Saturday: Jan Stephenson v Randall Vines
Sunday: Adam Scott v Jarrod Lyle
It was a parade of global golf talent rarely seen on Australian shores yet golf’s revised 2020 schedule has put Australia in position to once again draw the best of the best to two iconic tournament venues this summer.
Although the dates for the Australian Open at Kingston Heath Golf Club and Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland Golf Club are still to be finalised, the repositioning of golf’s three majors to potential new dates and current lack of playing opportunities opens the door to more players adding a Down Under plunder to their 2020 calendar.
Two-time Australian Open winner Matt Jones is almost certain to defend his title at Kingston Heath while 2019 champion Adam Scott and fellow PGA TOUR winners this year Marc Leishman and Cameron Smith are all on the hit list to play the PGA at Royal Queensland.
Add in European Tour winners Lucas Herbert and Min Woo Lee and a generous sprinkling of elite players from throughout the world and Australian golf has an opportunity to build on the momentum generated by last December’s Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne and our players since.
Players on the PGA TOUR, European Tour and Asian Tour in particular have been without a tournament to play in since the cancellation of THE PLAYERS Championship on March 13 while a start date for the 2020 Japan Golf Tour season remains very much up in the air.
The announcement on Tuesday of a proposed schedule incorporating PGA TOUR events, the US PGA Championship, US Open and a November Masters at Augusta National gave golf fans hope that a meaningful season can be salvaged in the week that the year’s first major was due to be played.
Health considerations regarding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic aside, The Masters is now slated to conclude on Sunday, November 15 and PGA of Australia CEO Gavin Kirkman believes Australia’s two most prestigious tournaments would provide players and fans alike with a satisfying conclusion to a disrupted year.
“Depending on what happens with the PGA TOUR’s Fall Series, upon the completion of The Masters there is the opportunity to attract strong fields for both the Australian Open and Australian PGA Championship,” Kirkman said.
“Given the success of the Presidents Cup last summer we’re excited to see the Australian Open return to such a highly-regarded venue as Kingston Heath Golf Club and I have no doubt players will be excited at the prospect of an Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland.
“Around those two we also have the NSW Open, WA Open, WA PGA, Gippsland Super 6 and Vic PGA tournaments before the end of the year which are very important for our player pathways.
“We’ve got to have a good chat now about lining up the dates for those seven events along with what will happen with tour schools around the world.
“We started the year off with all of those wins by our players in Asia, Europe and in America and when I arrived at THE PLAYERS Championship the excitement around what our players were doing and what we were achieving with our tour made us believe we were headed for one of our best seasons.
“The announcement of a revised schedule on Tuesday was certainly a positive indicator of what can still be achieved in 2020 and we’d love to be able to provide both our Australian players and international stars the chance to play on two of our finest courses.”
In line with government recommendations and in the interests of health for both the public and its staff, all PGA Tour of Australasia and PGA sanctioned events such as Pro-Ams and PGA Legends Tour events are currently suspended until June 1.
Kirkman says that the PGA will continue to monitor the advice and policies outlined by government and health organisations with the hope that any PGA-sanctioned events can take place as soon as it is safe to do so.
The Tailor-Made Building Services NT PGA Championship (August 20-23) and rescheduled PNG Open (September 24-27) are the next scheduled four-round events on the Australasian schedule to be followed by the WA PGA Championship and WA Open in successive weeks from October 8.
The Ladbrokes Pro-Am Series and Ladbrokes Legends Tour are often underwritten by the host golf club and although they are experiencing difficult times right now, Kirkman is confident that many will go ahead as planned once the season recommences.
“The regular contact that we’ve been in with clubs, even with the unknowns everyone is still keen to move forward with those events,” said Kirkman.
“Once the governments allow events to be played, when we do recommence it won’t immediately go back to normal. There may still be the physical distancing policy in place which might mean we play in groups of twos and other guidelines that we will have to follow in order to conduct an event in a safe manner.”
From Thursday Fox Sports will show a repeat of Adam Scott’s 2013 Masters triumph; Australian legend Rodger Davis was looking forward to being in Augusta this week to see the Queenslander secure a second green jacket.
Just hours after golf’s governing bodies announced a proposed schedule of events for later in the year in the wake of the COVID-19 shutdown, Davis backed the move of The Masters to mid-November.
Provided tournament golf can resume, that is when Scott will take a shot at a second victory at Augusta National Golf Club alongside Jason Day, Marc Leishman, Cameron Smith and US Mid-Amateur champion Lukas Michel.
Twice a participant at The Masters in 1988 and 1992, Davis watched Scott’s pulsating 2013 playoff win over Angel Cabrera from his Gold Coast home and, seven years on, believed that the 39-year-old was in position to repeat the feat.
“That year was being replicated this year,” said Davis, the current Chairman of the PGA of Australia.
“He won the Aussie Masters out here in the summer and then the next year he played well at Riviera (T10 at the Northern Trust Open) and had another good result in Florida (T3 at WGC-Cadillac Championship).
“Riviera in particular is a great warm-up for The Masters and tee-to-green wise he was playing so well. I was thinking, Here we go again, he could knock over a second Masters this year.
“And I was supposed to be there this year so I was really looking forward to it.”
Prior to Scott’s breakthrough, Augusta National had developed into a picturesque place of heartache for Aussie golfers.
Dating back to Jim Ferrier’s runner-up in finish in 1950, Aussies had come tantalisingly close to a green jacket for more than 60 years without success until Scott produced two of the greatest putts of his life at the 72nd hole and first hole of the playoff to enter Australian sporting immortality.
Dismissive of any notion of an Aussie curse at Augusta – “I don’t believe in it, I’m not really that sort of person” – Davis praised Scott for the way he shared his history-making accomplishment with the Australian public.
“What he did for Australian golf that year was just unbelievable,” said Davis, Scott returning that summer and winning the Australian PGA Championship, Australian Masters and finishing second at the Australian Open.
“He did everything that was asked of him in terms of promotions and what have you and in fact, in some ways, I thought he most probably did too much.
“He was at every function he could be at and did a great job as an ambassador for Australian golf and as an ambassador for The Masters.”
Starting at 7am on Thursday morning, Fox Sports will be replaying each of the four rounds of the 2013 Masters on Fox Sports 503 followed each day by replays of last year’s victory by Tiger Woods.
2013 Round 1: Thursday 7-11am
2013 Round 2: Friday 7-11am
2013 Round 3: Saturday 7-11am
2013 Round 4: Sunday 7-11am
The PGA of Australia has confirmed it will extend the current postponement period of all sanctioned events from Friday 1 May to Monday 1 June as the COVID-19 outbreak continues to evolve.
Affected events include those on the Ladbrokes Pro-Am Series, Ladbrokes Legends Tour, Volkswagen Scramble Regional Finals and the Championship Final as well as PGA Trainee and Open matches.
The decision has been made with the health and safety of PGA Professionals and stakeholders in mind and in line with government regulations.
“We will continue to work closely with competitors, sponsors and host venues in attempting to reschedule these events where possible,” said PGA of Australia Tournaments Director Australasia, Nick Dastey.
“While we will face another set of challenges when we are given the all clear to proceed, whenever that may be, I would like to thank our Members, stakeholders, host venues, participants and the wider golf community for their continued understanding during this period.”
The PGA – guided by the expertise of the Australian Government and leading health authorities – will continue to monitor the situation closely and will communicate any further changes.
Prolific Ladbrokes Legends Tour winner Brad Burns has described missing out on the chance to make his Seniors major debut as “gut-wrenching” as he faces the prospect of returning to work in the mines in central Queensland.
An official announcement on the postponement of the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship due to be played from May 21-24 at Harbor Shores in Michigan is expected any day now but Burns has already received credit for his flights to America, hopeful that the tournament will still go ahead later in the year.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the postponement of all major golf tours around the world yet in a release on Wednesday the PGA of America said they were still in the process of determining the alternatives available for the Senior PGA Championship.
“We hope to have an update in the near future and sincerely appreciate the patience of our wonderful volunteers, fans, supporters and our partners at KitchenAid,” the statement said.
“The health and safety of all involved in this prestigious championship is our highest priority.”
It’s a cruel blow for Burns who was last year denied the opportunity to play in the Insperity Invitational for the second straight year due to a late change in qualifying criteria, a change that meant he forfeited flights and accommodation already paid for.
Burns’ place in the 2020 Senior PGA field was earned by topping the 2019 Ladbrokes Legends Tour Order of Merit with nine wins from 75 starts but he must now wait to see when that opportunity will ultimately present itself.
“They’re going to make a decision in the next day or so but hopefully it’s going to be postponed until later in the year,” Burns said.
“That’s a disappointment, especially after last year. I was supposed to go to the Insperity Invitational and they changed the categories two months before we went.
“I’d already paid for the accommodation and the airfares so that’s two years running.
“I got an e-mail back yesterday and they’re going to make a decision soon but it can’t be on. No chance.
“Even if it is I can’t get there because QANTAS aren’t flying over there.
“It’s gut-wrenching.”
Prior to joining the Legends Tour as a rookie in 2016, Burns spent four years working in the mines, driving trucks for BMA near Blackwater in central Queensland.
Despite the fact that he has enjoyed wins this year at Otago, Long Island, Moonah Links, Portsea and most recently at Bermagui on March 17, Burns has already enquired as to heading back to the mines with little hope of returning to tournament golf anytime soon.
“I spent four years up in the mines until about 2016 so I’m going to apply for something up there and see how we go because any golf we get to play this year is going to be limited,” said Burns, who has been keeping boredom at bay this week by practising at Maroochy River on the Sunshine Coast.
“Because I’ve been in there before I’ve got all the paperwork to get back in there, just. Another five months or so and I wouldn’t have been able to do it.
“The paperwork is valid for five years and then you’ve got to do it again but hopefully I can sneak in there and get a job.
“If the mines helps cover me for six months without golf then at least you’re not spending all that hard-earned cash that you’ve earnt playing.
“I really feel for the young blokes who have nothing other than golf. I’ve been fortunate to do a few different things over the years but what do they do?
“Most likely go down to Centrelink and hop in line.”
