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Play for a share of prizemoney on some of the most spectacular golf courses on the planet in the unique Pro-Am Tour format available exclusively to PGA Members.
Designed with Vocational Members specifically in mind, Pro-Am Tours where the Professional recruits and plays with three club members have proven to be extremely popular. And with borders reopening and international travel once again possible there are two trips on sale that offer the experience of a lifetime.
Hosted by Air Adventure Golf, the first three events held at King Island since 2018 have proven to be so popular that the January 2022 tour sold out in just two weeks.
Many of those groups are return visitors so Air Adventure have added a second event for 2022 in May with just 25 groups available.
PGA Professionals who recruit three members at their club to join the tour will enjoy an all-expenses paid trip that includes flights, accommodation, transfers and meals.
Played across Cape Wickham and Ocean Dunes, the King Island experience is one that every golfer must enjoy at least once in their lifetime and Tour Promoter Jon Perrett is eager to see plenty of new faces in May.
“The response to the January Pro-Am was incredible and the majority of those bookings were PGA Professionals who have done the trip in the past,” said Perrett.
“With the borders reopening demand is going through the roof so we thought adding a second event in May would give others the chance to come down and experience King Island for themselves.”
Now is also the time to start planning international travel and there could be few better golf destinations than a week in Ireland.
CGE Golf are staging the Iconic Ireland Pro-Am from April 16-22, 2023 where PGA Professionals and their three amateur teammates will be treated to rounds at three of the most jaw-dropping courses in the world in Ballybunion, Doonbeg and Lahinch.
Included in the package will be a welcome dinner and presentation gala function at the Trump Doonbeg Hotel where the tour will be based.
The tour consists of a practice round, one round team event and a 54-hole Pro-Am Stableford Tournament for the prize pool of $55,000 with daily and overall prizes for the amateurs in the field.
The PGA Member’s ground cost is free of charge, while the amateur cost has been supported by Doonbeg Golf Links & Hotel, making this a most attractive package. Qatar Airlines will be offering a special flight price, departing from all major cities for pro-am participants.
There is also the opportunity to extend the trip into Northern Ireland and schedule a stopover in Doha on the return leg for those who take up the special price offered by Qatar Airways.
“We know international travel is going to be highly sought after in the next few years and for golfers there are few more desirable destinations than Ireland,” said CGE Golf Director Steven Baron.
“We created these tours specifically for PGA Members who don’t ordinarily get to play tournament golf and who have wonderful relationships with the members at their respective clubs.
“This is a way to further enhance those relationships, play some extraordinary golf courses and with a limit of 30 PGA Members pick up a nice slice of the prize money at the same time.”
For more information on either tour click the links below.
His goal is nothing short of ending the summer as the No.1 on the PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit but to do so one of the brightest prospects in Australian golf will commence his campaign in the tiny town of Barham.
Located on the New South Wales side of the Murray River, cluBarham Golf Resort will this weekend host the 36-hole Border Open Pro-Am, the 64th staging of the event and part of the adidas Pro-Am Series.
Not held in 2020 due to COVID, this year’s $25,000 Border Open has attracted a stellar field including the sensation of last summer, Elvis Smylie.
Tied for second at TPS Victoria whilst still an amateur, Smylie finished tied for third at TPS Sydney at Bonnie Doon and was runner-up again at the Golf Challenge NSW Open to rise more than 1,000 spots on the Official World Golf Rankings in the space of five weeks.
That run of form led to invites to play on the European Tour but a back injury and the realities of managing your game on tour restricted Smylie to just three starts and three missed cuts in the space of five months.
Yet after flying into Sydney last Sunday and sharpening his game at The Lakes and Bonnie Doon, the 19-year-old revealed his lofty expectations for the summer ahead.
“My goal at the end of the day is to win the Order of Merit and get my European Tour card,” said Smylie.
“I’m going to do everything necessary to make that happen. And I know how capable I am of making that happen.
“I’m excited for these Pro-Ams coming up because that’ll gear me to getting into that competitive environment, putting a score together and making putts when they need to go in.”
Smylie’s intention is to return home to Queensland following the Cathedral Lodge pro-am and return to Melbourne for the Geoff Ogilvy-inspired Sandbelt Invitational from December 20.
His first PGA Tour of Australasia event will be the Australian PGA Championship starting January 13 with course designer Mike Clayton on the bag followed by the Queensland PGA, three Webex Players Series events and the New Zealand Open before returning to Europe.
“The plan is to play well enough in those events to secure the Order of Merit,” Smylie added.
“Then I’ll be able to go over in May, June and finish what I started.”
Despite playing just three events in the space of five months and having to withdraw from the ISPS HANDA World Invitational after sustaining a back injury hitting out of long rough, Smylie insists the experience will hold him in good stead.
Signed to Creative Arts Agency management prior to arriving in Europe, hopes were high that Smylie’s instant impact in Australia would transfer to the global scale, the reality he faced only strengthening his desire to make an impression at the highest level.
“I didn’t play the way I wanted but the experience that I had over there will be better for me moving forward,” said Smylie, who has been drawn alongside 2019 NT PGA champion Brett Rankin in Saturday’s opening round at Barham.
“It’ll help me become the golfer that I want to be in the next couple years because it’s not all smooth sailing. You’re not home and nothing’s real familiar. Everything is different.
“It’s about making the most of each situation and adjusting and adapting to climate and conditions, where you’re practicing each week when you’re not playing a tournament and how you’re going about being productive on a day-to-day basis.
“It was quite important for me to experience that early. Obviously I’ve been dreaming about this moment for a long time, and I got a glimpse of it, and yeah, it didn’t work out, but I know that when I go back over there I’ll be ready to attack it.”
As for the bulging disc that sidelined him for six weeks, Smylie says it continues to cause him some discomfort but hasn’t necessitated a body transformation, just some slight adjustments in his gym workouts.
“I’ve been working tremendously hard to get physically 100 per cent,” said Smylie.
“There’s still some tweaks and stuff, every now and then, but I’m more on top of it than I was before.
“I have put a little bit more muscle on but I don’t think you’ll ever see me get that big.
“I’ll still be the slender, slim guy on tour I reckon.”
The 64th Border Open Pro-Am tees off at 7.15am Saturday morning AEDT. The field includes Elvis Smylie, Bryden Macpherson, Marcus Fraser and Matthew Millar. Click here for live scores.
Moe Golf Club member Dael Scurlock claimed the Gippsland Super 6 Amateur at the weekend, with a comfortable four-shot victory in the final six-hole match.
Scurlock prevailed over a wide field in the dynamic tournament, which involves a first round of 18-hole stroke play followed by a series of knock-out match play games, until the last man standing wins.
“What a thrill today was. Pretty challenging conditions all day and it was great to finish it off with the win,” Scurlock said.
“It’s going to be a great week at Warragul and I’m looking forward to getting involved in all thing going on that week.”
By claiming the tournament, the Gippsland local earns a VIP experience at the upcoming PGA Tour of Australasia sanctioned Gippsland Super 6 in Warragul during December.
Golf Australia High Performance Squad member Toby Walker shot the lowest round of the day in the opening 18-hole stroke play round, gaining a qualification into the $137,500 pro tour Gippsland Super 6.
“I haven’t ever played Warragul, but I’m looking forward to getting there early in tournament week for a few practice rounds,” said Walker.
“I really like the Super 6 format and I’m really keen to play it at Warragul.”
Tom Bond has taken out the 2021 South Australian Associate Championships at Links Lady Bay, Normanville in bitter and windy conditions on the Fleurieu Peninsula.
“I’m happy how I played over the four rounds,” said Bond after his win.
“The conditions were brutal. We had four-club winds and the rain was relentless. I had to golf the ball and grind it out mentally and physically on every shot, all the Associates had to.
“The course was in great condition and a real big thank you to Links Lady Bay for hosting the event, it’s a great course.”
With the 72-hole tournament played over two days each comprising two 18-hole rounds, Bond endured the cold and windy conditions to produce a 3-under par 69 in round one and even-par round two to lead the field at 3-under par after day one.
Similar conditions followed on day two, as Bond shot rounds of even-par and a closing 4-over par to claim the title with a total score of 1-over par 289 for the four rounds.
Steve Capon finished runner-up 11 shots back with a total score of 300 strokes.
“I consider my final round to be probably the best golf I’ve played in my life,” said Capon.
“I shot three-under in the last ten holes and I’m incredibly proud with the result. It was a great tournament that was played on one of the toughest and best golf courses in the state.
“The course layout always makes you grind and adapt to the unrelenting situations you ultimately find yourself in, especially in those conditions.”
Brodie Whitbread finished in third place with a total score of 302.
“Some of the hardest conditions I have ever played in but that’s golf. A real testament to Tom and Capo’s games,” said Whitbread.
In the concurrently-run Pro Am, a hole-in-one was made by Darcy Salamon from Kooyonga Golf Club on the 15th hole in round two with a perfect 9 iron.
“Because of the elevated green we couldn’t see the ball go in, we heard a noise, but didn’t have a clue until we got up there,” said Salamon.
After two years of uncertainty some of Australian golf’s most familiar names and a host of up-and-comers will make their long-awaited return to tournament golf at a course perfectly suited for the occasion.
Howlong Golf Resort just outside Albury on the banks of the Murray River will host its first Blitz Golf event on Friday and has drawn some of this country’s most accomplished players.
Three-time European Tour winner Marcus Fraser, NSW Open champion Bryden Macpherson, 2021 Blitz Golf Series winner Matthew Millar and three-time PGA Tour of Australasia winner Matthew Griffin (pictured) will all tee it up in the unique one-day format that starts with 40 players and culminates with four players facing off on one hole for the title.
It will mark the first time that Griffin puts a new putting style to the test of tournament pressure, 166 days since his last tournament appearance in Japan.
‘How long since you’ve played?’ has been a common question for many Aussie golfers the past 18 months but ahead of the Blitz Golf event, two-day pro-am at Barham and the first of two $50,000 NSW Open qualifiers at Murray Downs, Griffin is happy to have a schedule he can build into over the coming weeks and months.
Following the New Zealand Open in March 2020, Griffin went 329 days between tournaments, his only solace coming from the time he has been able to spend with his young family.
“You can’t get away from the fact that I’ve lost two years of the peak period of my golfing life but I’ve been able to spend two years with my young son Jack,” said Griffin, who has fallen almost 1,200 spots in the Official World Golf Rankings since the NZ Open.
“If I didn’t have Jack it would have been a very long two years.
“Instead of having to travel half the year I’ve been able to spend a lot of quality time with him. My wife’s been working so I’ve been able to look after him most of the time at home and that’s been really nice.
“The good part about it is that seeing a bit more behind the scenes (as a member of the Tournament Players Council) there’s a lot of really good stuff going on.
“Hopefully as we come out of this COVID break I can see the next three or four years being really positive for the tour.”
In the initial lockdown Griffin and coach Denis McDade invested time in addressing swing issues that they hadn’t been able to fully get on top of amidst a hectic playing schedule.
The 38-year-old was top-15 in three consecutive events on the domestic tour earlier this year but was frustrated by his putting performance, using this latest hiatus to experiment with two different methods.
“I’ve trialled the arm lock and the cross-handed so I’ll be starting at Howlong putting cross-handed which is the first time I will have done that in my career,” Griffin revealed.
“It’s been a lot of experimenting, just to see what works. The hard thing is that I can use it playing a social round at Victoria but I won’t know if any of these methods that I’ve been working on for the last five months are any good until I put it into competition.
“Both methods feel good in practice, it’s just a matter of when the heat comes on and I need to hole a six or seven-footer for birdie on the first hole at Howlong, that’s when I’ll know if they’re any good.
“It’s eager anticipation that hopefully it does feel good when I step out onto the golf course.”
With the field cut in half after just six holes trialling a new putting style at a Blitz Golf event could result in an early exit.
Having never progressed past the semi-final stage, Griffin concedes the mix of patience and aggression can be a tricky one to get right.
“My Blitz Golf record is really good for the first round,” said Griffin, who will play the adidas Pro-Am Series events at Barham and Cohuna ahead of The Murray Open at Murray Downs.
“The first round is a delicate balance because if you make a mistake you can be out of it straight away. You’ve got to play aggressive but if you make a double on the first it’s almost all over.
“When you do get into that second round you’ve got three holes and if you don’t make a birdie you’re probably going home so then you really have to play pretty aggressive because there’s no difference between missing by one shot or five.
“I’ve topped the first round two or three times but I’ve never got past the semi-finals. I’ve got to get some revenge on that at Howlong on Friday.”
Play at Blitz Golf Howlong begins at 2pm AEDT on Friday. Click here for the field and scoring.
The SParms Legends Tour took a detour yesterday, as Meadowbrook Golf Club hosted a spontaneous extra event, filling in some of the space left vacant by Covid rescheduling.
Pulled together in under a week by Bill Henderson, the PGA and Meadowbrook Golf Club, it was Glenn Joyner who continued a strong run of form and took the chocolates at the tournament.
“I birdied all of the par fives today which helped,” said Joyner, who birdied three of his last four holes to finish 4-under 68 and win clear by one shot.
“It is great to see the club put on an event like this at such short notice. Covid restrictions have made it tough for the playing group, so to have an extra event like this certainly helps with the bank balance.”
Perfect conditions greeted the players in the morning at Meadowbrook in the City of Logan on the fringes of Brisbane, before strong winds made scoring difficult later in the day.
“I played well today but I made a bad bogey on the last hole which has cost me,” said Alan Cooper who finished in second place on 3-under 69.
Guy Wall finished a further shot back on 2-under 70, with Tod Power rounding out the top four on 1-under 70.
The next event on the SParms Legends Pro-Am Series is the Pacific Legends Pro-Am today.
Todd Power found form yesterday to win the Riverlakes Legends Pro-Am by three shots following a 6-under par round of 64
Power’s round was bogey free, comprising 6 birdies on holes 2, 6, 7, 9, 11 and 15.
“This is a total form reversal for me as I really haven’t been playing well throughout the QLD swing of the PGA Legends Tour. Though it was certainly a pleasant surprise,” said Power
“I holed everything on the greens today, though the turning point was a chip in for par on the 17th hole after I hit it in the water, and that gave me plenty of momentum to finish the round off.
“It is a shame we only have two events left on our swing of events here in QLD given how I played today, though we are really appreciative to all of the organisers who have rescheduled their events like Riverlakes, given the likely delay before the next events on the schedule”.
Shot of the day went to Craig Warren who recorded a hole in one on the 117m par-3 third hole where he hit a 9 iron. This makes his 16th hole in one of his career.
Tim Elliott, Guy Wall and Paul Dalgleish rounded out the top placings, tied for second at 3-under, followed by Nigel Lane in outright fifth place at 2-under.
The SParms PGA Legends Tour now heads back to Meadowbrook Golf Club today for the inaugural William (Bill) Beattie Henderson Memorial Cup.
Veteran touring professional Terry Price has recorded a third victory at The Brisbane Golf Club with a one-stroke win at the Brisbane Legends Pro-Am.
Now in his 44th year as a professional, Price had three birdies and an eagle in his round of 4-under 67 on Monday to finish one shot clear of Adam Le Vesconte, adding the SParms PGA Legends Tour win to his Yeerongpilly Cup victories at Brisbane Golf Club in 2001 and 2010.
A two-time winner of the New Zealand Open, Price’s lone blemish came with a bogey at the par-4 fifth as he registered his first victory on the Legends Tour in 2021.
“I really like the layout here at Brisbane and playing the traditional hole rotation today certainly brought back some good memories,” said Price.
“The PGA Professionals on the Legends Tour are very grateful for clubs staging pro-ams in the current environment.
“With the events being played this week all having been rescheduled from last month we are even more appreciative for the efforts of those responsible.”
Still chasing that elusive breakthrough win on the Legends Tour, Le Vesconte’s runner-up finish was his seventh top-10 result in 11 starts this year, Christopher Taylor (69), Brad Burns (70) and Russell Swanson (70) rounding out the top five.
The next stop on the SParms PGA Legends Tour is Riverlakes Golf Club on Wednesday for the Auto Cable and Accessories Riverlakes Legends Pro-Am.
Brisbane professional Murray Lott has wasted no time in making his mark on the SParms PGA Legends Tour, earning a one-stroke victory at the Mt Warren Park Legends Pro-Am on Friday.
Having only joined the over-50 set last month, the Victoria Park Golf Complex teaching professional had three birdies in his first four holes on his way to a round of 5-under 67 and a one-shot win from defending champion David Fearns (68) and Bryan Wearne (68).
In doing so Lott became the youngest winner on the SParms Legends Tour this year and is giving every indication that it won’t be his last.
“I love the camaraderie amongst the playing group on the Legends Tour,” said Lott, the 2007 PGA Professionals Championship winner.
“I feel comfortable out here playing with these guys.
“I hit the ball really good today and made some good putts.”
Starting on the eighth hole, Lott got off to a flying start with birdies on holes nine, 10 and 11 to be 3- under par early in his round.
He got to 6-under with further birdies at 14, 17 and two with a lone bogey on the sixth hole seeing him sign for a round of 67.
Fearns launched a brave defence of his 2020 victory only to come up one shot short of his target.
“During the round I thought that 5-under would be the winning score and unfortunately I came up just short this time,” said Fearns.
Five players – Guy Wall, Simon Tooman, Tim Elliott, Nigel Lane and Euan Walters – finished a further shot back in a tie for fourth with rounds of 3-under 69. The next event on the SParms PGA Legends Touris the Brisbane Legends Pro-Am at The Brisbane Golf Club on Monday, September 13.
Former PGA Tour player Andre Stolz is recovering in hospital after suffering a heart attack while competing on the SParms PGA Legends Tour.
The 51-year-old, who rose to prominence in 2004 when he won the PGA Tour’s Michelin Championship at Las Vegas, was competing in the Halcyon Meadowbrook Legends Pro-Am in Brisbane on Tuesday when he began to feel pains in his chest.
A statement on his personal Facebook account read: “Yesterday whilst playing at Meadowbrook Andre experienced severe chest pains which have now been confirmed as a ‘heart attack’.
“He was taken by ambulance to hospital and will be there for some time as they assess surgery and his recovery.
“We appreciate if everyone would respect his and wife Katrina’s privacy at this difficult time. Our thoughts are with him and his family.”
Stolz had been on a winning run in his comeback from injury, winning six events on the popular seniors circuit. He was due to be in the US launching his own Champions Tour career two weeks ago but instead had to use Rod Pampling’s breakthrough victory on the American circuit as inspiration to win the Royal Queensland Legends Pro-Am in Brisbane.
Just a couple of hours after Pampling broke an 18-year drought for Aussies on the Champions Tour with his win at the Boeing Classic, players on the SParms PGA Legends Tour took to the Royal Queensland Golf Club layout.
The dominant force on the Legends Tour this year, Stolz had originally intended to be in America for Champions Tour qualifying but with travel so difficult instead turned his attention to RQ, firing seven birdies in a round of 6-under 66 to win by three strokes.
“I was actually due to be in the US this week pre-qualifying for the Champions Tour though challenges getting back into the country stopped me from jumping on the plane,” Stolz said after the win.
“It was great to see Rod Pampling fly the Australian flag and get the win especially given he is a member here at Royal Queensland Golf Club.
“Hopefully I can get over to the US when travel is far easier.”
The PGA of Australia and the entire Australian golf community wishes Stolz a speedy recovery.
