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He’s been coming to Bunbury since he was 13 and now Rick Kulacz is eyeing a Nexus Risk Services South West Open triumph as the next step in reigniting his professional golf career.
The culmination of the South West Series that forms part of the Adidas Pro-Am Series season, the two-day tournament at Bunbury Golf Club has been a fixture on the WA golf calendar for many years and has once again drawn some of Australian golf’s biggest names.
Six-time European Tour winner Brett Rumford headlines a field that also includes 2020 Pro-Am Order of Merit winner Matt Millar and 2017 Fiji International champion Jason Norris along with a host of the best professional and amateur talent in Western Australia.
Kulacz recorded his first PGA Tour of Australasia win as a 21-year-old amateur at the 2006 NSW Open but a combination of injury and illness stalled his progression towards joining world golf’s elite.
A win at the 36-hole South Coast Open in March was vindication of the work he and coach David Milne have done over the past 18 months and with a win and fourth place finish in his past two starts is eyeing off a title he has been chasing for 23 years.
“I’ve been coming down here since I was 13 or 14 years old so it would be nice to knock it off this year considering I have been coming down here for so long,” said the soon-to-be 36-year-old.
“It’s a great spot down here in Bunbury and the course is always great. Greens are quick, it’s quite narrow, country-type course and there seem to be guys who keep coming back to it so it must be pretty good.
“It’s a great event.”
After turning professional in 2007 Kulacz began to establish himself first in Asia and then the European Tour.
He won two Asian Tour events before qualifying for the European Tour in 2010, logging a top-five finish in his very first start at the Africa Open.
But a thumb injury and gall stones that ultimately required surgery to remove his gall bladder made 2012 a year that would cause ongoing issues.
“Everything kind of spiralled in 2012,” Kulacz conceded.
“I played the whole year with a torn ligament in my thumb, I got in some bad habits, I had gall stones and had to have my gall bladder taken out… It all just slapped me in the face in the same year.
“I had my gall bladder taken out and I was back on the range hitting balls eight days later.
“I was so hellbent on getting back out there that was just my frame of mind at the time.
“I had three or four really tough years trying to figure out what I wanted to do and it’s only been the last three or four years that I’ve started to find my feet a little bit again and being able to compete in these events.
“I was just rocking up hoping every week to try and find some sort of form. I’m a lot more solid now and know what I’m doing to a certain point.
“But there were a few tough years there. I just lost my way for one reason or another.”
Although the vision he had as a precocious amateur has not yet come to pass, Kulacz is looking to players such as star of the summer Bryden Macpherson and US PGA champion Phil Mickelson as inspiration that he can still reach his full potential.
“Seeing guys winning on tour all different ages, even Phil winning a Major at 50. There’s a big difference between age groups of guys that are winning out there,” said Kulacz.
“I’m not as young as I used to be but seeing the guys that are a bit older who are still winning, that gives everyone a little bit of hope.
“There are some good signs there but you need to do it in the bigger events and that’s my next step. Getting back to playing in bigger events and performing in those.
“I’ve been pretty consistent over the last few events which is nice to see. Hopefully I can keep that going for the rest of the year and beyond.”
Jason Day is facing the prospect of missing his first Major championship in close to a decade after withdrawing from the Memorial Tournament due to a back injury prior to the first round at Muirfield Village.
Currently ranked 69th in the Official World Golf Rankings, Day needed a strong showing at Muirfield Village to move inside the top 60 and qualify for the US Open at Torrey Pines from June 17 but a back injury sustained on Monday ultimately forced his withdrawal.
Playing at his home club where he finished fourth a year ago, Day had hoped to recover in time to take his place in the field but in consultation with his team decided it was best not to risk aggravating the injury any further.
“Unfortunately, I’ve had to make the decision to withdraw from the Memorial Tournament with a back injury,” Day said in a statement.
“While my body has been great recently I tweaked my back on Monday and while we tried to get it right over the last few days ultimately I felt the best decision was not to put it at further risk.
“It’s disappointing to have to miss one of my favourite tournaments of the year but I’m confident it’s nothing major and with some rest and rehab I’ll be back soon.
“I look forward to returning to Muirfield Village next year and I wish Jack [Nicklaus]and the tournament every success this week.”
The only avenue available to Day to now qualify for the US Open is a 36-hole qualifier in Columbus on Monday but the 33-year-old previously stated that he would skip that in favour of a corporate commitment.
Day has played every US Open since finishing runner-up on debut in 2011 and has missed only one Major – the 2012 Open Championship due to the birth of his first child – since the 2010 US Open at Pebble Beach.
The remaining Aussies in the field at Memorial made little progress before the tournament’s opening round was suspended due to inclement weather.
Marc Leishman was 2-under through five holes, Cam Davis and Matt Jones were both at 1-under, Adam Scott and Lucas Herbert even with the card and Cameron Smith made bogey at the par-4 10th, the only hole he completed before play was called off.
Adam Scott will have to fall in love with Muirfield Village Golf Club all over again after Jack Nicklaus unveiled a raft of changes to the golf course he calls home ahead of this week’s Memorial Tournament on the PGA TOUR.
One of the PGA TOUR’s most revered venues not only for its host but the test it presents to the game’s best players, Muirfield Village underwent a thorough renovation immediately following Jon Rahm’s three-stroke win last July.
Starting with the 490-yard par-4 first that has been lengthened by 30 yards, no hole has gone untouched with new professional tees added at two, three, five, six and seven.
There have been new tees also installed at eight, 11 and 15 since Scott finished runner-up at the 2019 tournament and with reconstructed greens, a new bentgrass and all green surrounds resurfaced the practice rounds earlier in the week took on extra significance.
With 11 cuts made from 12 appearances in the tournament and four top-five finishes, Scott was a fan of the facility just the way it was but believes Nicklaus has struck a good balance between scoring opportunities and delivering a sterner test.
“Obviously they’ve made some pretty significant changes and at the moment it’s a bit of mixed emotions because I loved the course how it was,” Scott said ahead of the first round where he will play alongside Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland.
“We’ll see how it plays out this week. There’s some big changes early on in the course. Some of them are quite friendly and some will challenge us for sure.
“I like fast greens generally and that’s always been what they’re trying to achieve here.
“A lot of the tee shots really suit my eye. It’s one of those golf courses that you get to and feel comfortable at and that’s how I feel again this week.”
Two weeks out from the US Open and with the British Open at Royal St George’s on the horizon next month Scott is determined to put in a strong showing this week after a disappointing result at the US PGA Championship at Kiawah Island.
“I got off to a bad start and I was on the back foot,” Scott conceded.
“I played well on Friday but unfortunately the damage was already done. I felt like I played some really good golf there so hopefully I can get four really good rounds in here and go into the US Open with some confidence.
“Certainly then everyone has to make the adjustment to links golf for the Open Championship and that’s a big adjustment.
“An interesting next five or six weeks with a couple of major championships and an adjustment to be made.”
Thick rough from the very edge of the fairway. Greens that instil the type of trepidation that comes with a downhill ski jump when viewed from the top side of the hole.
To quote NBC’s Dan Hicks’ immortal words following Tiger Woods’ 18th hole heroics at the 2008 US Open, “Expect anything different?”
The best female players on the planet have assembled at The Olympic Club in San Francisco and been confronted by a golf course that measures 6,486 yards (5,931 metres) and will play to a par of 71.
This is the US Women’s Open and Australia’s lone Major champion in the field is adopting the attitude that the tougher, the better.
West Australian Hannah Green shocked the world when she made a sand save at the 72nd hole to complete a wire-to-wire win at the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in 2019.
That performance reinforced the grit necessary to turn talent into trophies and the 24-year-old knows she will need all of that mental toughness to be triumphant at The Olympic Club.
“This week is going to be a little different to what we’ve had the whole entire year,” says Green, who hasn’t finished worse than 14th in her past five strokeplay starts.
“This year pars are going to be great scores. I wouldn’t be surprised if you saw the winner at over par. That’s how tough it’s playing.
“The course is long, just because we are getting cooler temperatures, and the rough is really thick. Getting yourself around is going to be quite the tough task.
“Major championships are already a long week, but I think with having to concentrate with every shot on this golf course, it’s going to be quite gruelling.
“Every part of your game is going to be tested this week, so I’m ready for the task.”
Rising to a career high of No.13 in the world after finishing runner-up at the HSBC Women’s World Championship in Singapore in April, Green is benefiting from a program undertaken with coach Ritchie Smith to add more distance to her game.
She is 10th in average driving distance (274.77 yards) on the LPGA Tour and 21st in greens in regulation (74.77 per cent) but knows her putting (first in putts per GIR, fifth in putting average) may be this week’s most valuable weapon.
“Fairways and greens is key, but also giving yourself uphill putts,” said Green.
“If you get some downhill putts, it’s going to be defensive. You won’t be able to be aggressive and try to make it.
“They don’t actually have a first cut of rough here, so it’s going to be quite interesting.
“There are a few run-offs that we have to worry about with the slopes and making sure that, even if you have to hit 3-wood and have a longer shot in, it’s going to be quite a different way of playing golf compared to just hitting driver everywhere.
“The rough is quite thick around the greens, so whoever hits the most greens, I want to say, is probably who’s going to win the tournament.”
Green has been paired with fellow Major champions Danielle Kang and Jin-young Ko for the first two rounds and believes such a star-studded group will also help to bring out her best.
“I’ve got a great pairing, playing with Danielle Kang and Jin Young Ko,” said Green.
“That will be really fun to play with them. Obviously they’re both in quite some form this year.
“It’s always nice to have good playing partners to kind of carry on and vibe off each other.”
Exemption into the US Open in two weeks’ time will serve as extra incentive for Aussie pair Jason Scrivener and Jason Day when they tee it up on opposite sides of the globe this week.
In another busy week highlighted by the five Aussie women teeing it up at the US Women’s Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco from Friday morning AEST, Scrivener and Day will have their eyes on the added bonus that can come from a strong showing on the European Tour and PGA TOUR respectively.
Third in Denmark last week to move inside the top 100 in the Official World Golf Rankings for the first time in his career, Scrivener enters this week’s Porsche European Open eighth in the three-event US Open qualification series that will award the top 10 finishers each a spot at Torrey Pines from June 17-20.
A tournament with a strong history of Australian winners, this week’s staging of the European Open has had to be reduced to 54 holes starting Saturday due to Germany adding the UK to a COVID-19 ‘red list’ that requires visitors to observe a period of quarantine when entering the country.
While Scrivener’s world ranking continues its ascension, Jason Day’s is heading in the opposite direction, ranked No.69 in the world entering the Memorial Tournament at his home club of Muirfield Village in Ohio.
Tied for fourth in this event last year, Day would likely need something even better to play his way inside the top 60 by tournament’s end and earn a late US Open exemption on a course where he has enjoyed success dating all the way back to his Callaway World Junior title as a 16-year-old.
It’s a strong representation of Aussies at the tournament synonymous with Jack Nicklaus with Cameron Smith, Marc Leishman and Adam Scott all joining Day in the field along with Cam Davis, Matt Jones and Lucas Herbert.
The Australian contingent at the US Women’s Open has also been bolstered by the qualification of former Brisbane junior Emily Mahar.
A standout the past four seasons at Virginia Tech university, Mahar showed tremendous composure to execute under pressure at a qualifier in Virginia, playing her way into her first Major by winning a 3-for-1 playoff.
She joins Minjee Lee, Hannah Green, Sarah Kemp and Sarah Jane Smith along with Kiwi Amelia Garvey chasing Major championship glory.
Elsewhere around the planet there are Aussie pros in action in Korea, Japan, the Czech Republic, France, North Carolina and
Read more on Sarah Kemp’s preparation for the US Women’s Open in our latest player blog.
Round 1 tee times AEST
US Women’s Open
The Olympic Club, San Francisco, California
12.11am* Sarah Jane Smith, Kim Metraux, Gurleen Kaur (a)
12.48am Amelia Garvey, Mi Hyang Lee, Da Yeon Lee
12.55am* Minjee Lee, Ariya Jutanugarn, Amy Olson
1.17am* Hannah Green, Danielle Kang, Jin Young Ko
5.30am* Emily Mahar (a), Ssu Chia Cheng, Elizabeth Szokol
6.03am* Sarah Kemp, Alison Lee, Aneka Seumanutafa (a)
Defending champion: Kim A-lim
Past Aussie winners: Jan Stephenson (1983), Karrie Webb (2000, 2001)
Top Aussie prediction: Hannah Green
TV schedule: Live 7.30am-1pm Friday; Live 7am-1pm Saturday; Live 4am-12pm Sunday; Live 5am-9am Monday on Fox Sports 505
PGA TOUR
Memorial Tournament
Muirfield Village Golf Club, Dublin, Ohio
2.20am Danny Lee, Charley Hoffman, Peter Malnati
2.56am Marc Leishman, Richy Werenski, William McGirt
3.20am Jason Day, CT Pan, J.B. Holmes
3.44am Adam Scott, Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland
2.44am* Cam Davis, Russell Henley, Henrik Norlander
3.08am* Matt Jones, Branden Grace, Sebastián Muñoz
3.44am* Cameron Smith, Sung Kang, Patton Kizzire
3.56am* Lucas Herbert, James Hahn, Patrick Rodgers
Defending champion: Jon Rahm
Past Aussie winners: David Graham (1980), Greg Norman (1990, 1995)
Top Aussie prediction: Cameron Smith
TV schedule: Live 5am-9am Friday, Saturday; Live 2.30am-8am Sunday; Live 2am-8am Monday on Fox Sports 503.
Japan Golf Tour
JGTC Mori Building Cup
Shishido Hills Country Club (West Cse), Ibaraki
7.28am Scott Strange, Tomohiro Kondo, Hiroyuki Nagamatsu
10.39am Anthony Quayle, Mikiya Akutsu, Angelo Que
10.57am Brad Kennedy, Yuta Kinoshita, Tatsunori Nukaga
12.37pm Andrew Evans, Fumihiro Ebine, Ryoma Iwai
1.32pm Todd Sinnott, Yuki Kono, Miguel Carballo
1.41pm Michael Hendry, Yasunobu Fukunaga, Daisuke Yasumoto
1.50pm Adam Bland, Takanori Konishi, Shun Murayama
1.59pm Matthew Griffin, Yusuke Sakamoto, Shintaro Kobayashi
2.08pm David Bransdon, Naoto Takayanagi, Blake Snyder
2.17pm Dylan Perry, Shohei Hasegawa, Yu Morimoto
Defending champion: Mikumu Horikawa (2019)
Past Aussie winners: Nil
Top Aussie prediction: David Bransdon
European Tour
Porsche European Open
Green Eagle Golf Courses, Hamburg, Germany
Aussies in the field: Scott Hend, Wade Ormsby, Min Woo Lee, Ryan Fox,
Jason Scrivener, Maverick Antcliff, Jake McLeod, Josh Geary, Dimi Papadatos, Deyen Lawson, Jarryd Felton
Defending champion: Paul Casey (2019)
Past Aussie winners: Graham Marsh (1981), Greg Norman (1986), Peter Senior (1990), Mike Harwood (1991)
Top Aussie prediction: Min Woo Lee
TV schedule: Live 8pm-2am Saturday, Sunday on Fox Sports 503
Korn Ferry Tour
REX Hospital Open
The CC at Wakefield Plantation, Raleigh, North Carolina
9.16pm* Curtis Luck, Tommy Gainey, Steve LeBrun
10.19pm* Harrison Endycott, Augusto Núñez, Harry Hall
10.30pm* Nick Voke, Stuart Macdonald, Eric Cole
10.40pm Ryan Ruffels, Matt Atkins, Chandler Blanchet
2.20am Rhein Gibson, Julián Etulain, Chad Ramey
2.20am* Cameron Percy, Jamie Arnold, Brett Stegmaier,
3.23am Brett Coletta, Adam Svensson, David Lipsky
Defending champion: Sebastian Cappelen (2019)
Past Aussie winners: Mark Hensby (2000)
Top Aussie prediction: Rhein Gibson
Challenge Tour
D+D REAL Czech Challenge 2021
Golf & Spa Kunětická Hora, Dříteč, Czech Republic
9pm Daniel Hillier, Sam Broadhurst, Matthew Baldwin
9.05pm* Blake Windred, Jordi Garcia Moral, Gary Boyd
Defending champion: Ross McGowan (2019)
Past Aussie winners: Nil
Top Aussie prediction: Blake Windred
KPGA Tour
The 11th Descente Korea Munsingwear Matchplay
Device GC, South Korea
Aussies in the field: Wonjoon Lee, Junseok Lee
Ladies European Tour
Jabra Ladies Open
Evian Resort Golf Club, Evian-les-Bais, France
4.14pm Stephanie Kyriacou, Lucie Malchirand, Annabel Dimmock
4.25pm Whitney Hillier, Stacy Lee Bregman, Maha Haddioui
Defending champion: Annabel Dimmock (2019)
Past Aussie winners: Nil
Top Aussie prediction: Stephanie Kyriacou
Champions Tour
Principal Charity Classic
Wakonda Club, Des Moines, Iowa
Aussies in the field: Stephen Leaney, David McKenzie, Rod Pampling, John Senden
Defending champion: Kevin Sutherland (2019)
Past Aussie winners: Nil
Top Aussie prediction: Stephen Leaney
With her two best finishes on US soil coming already this season, seasoned LPGA Tour campaigner Sarah Kemp enters this week’s US Women’s Open at Olympic Club in San Francisco in the best physical and mental state of her career. With Tony Webeck
I’ve been to Olympic Club before and played the other course but I’ve got a feeling I’m going to love it. I would love to play well. Obviously it’s the US Open but if I can keep doing what I’ve been doing this year and stick to my game-plans and not put too much pressure on myself or the situation, I’d love to have a good week and I think it’s possible.
I played 18 holes on Monday morning, Tuesday and Wednesday I’m playing nine holes each day and then I’ll take Wednesday afternoon off. Sarah 10 years ago would have gone 18-18-18 which is silly. It’s about practising smarter. You don’t have to be at the golf course all day; you can get a lot done in three hours. I’m hitting the ball well so when you go to a new tournament like this it’s getting a feel for the place. Lines off the tee and do a lot of pace putting and get the speed of the greens, especially on Wednesday. I’m sure the rough’s going to be super-long but I won’t be doing anything too complicated to get ready.
I was talking to my coach John Serhan on Sunday night and while it would have been nice to make it out of the group stages at the Bank of Hope Match-Play last week, he was happy that I got a couple of days rest before such a big week. I feel like the older I get the more I appreciate recovery. When I was in my 20s I would just play week-in and week-out and now you realise that’s a bit silly. There are definitely off weeks where you can recharge and get back to the events a bit fresher. I’m trying to stick to no more than four in a row during this busy part of the season.
I got to come home to Australia and did hotel quarantine over Christmas and New Year and then had five weeks to see John. I’d been hitting the ball well for a couple of years now and we just worked really hard on my putting and in particular the pace of my putts and that has paid off.
I also worked with a sports psychologist by the name of John Crampton. I met him while I was home and we put in a couple of things that I was lacking in the mental department and added them into a routine I do on the course now. The combination of those two has been the key to the good start to the year.
I turned pro when I was 20. I’d won pretty much everything you needed to win in Australia and did some travelling overseas. I was labelled a little bit as the ‘next Karrie Webb’. I don’t remember the pressure but I’m sure there was some. I would have liked to have played this kind of golf 10 years ago but golf’s a sport that you can play for a really long time as long as you’re fit and healthy. It would have been nice to have this earlier on but it’s happening now and I’m still enjoying it.
I grew up when Karrie was No.1 in the world; that’s really hard to do. Even if you had a quarter of Karrie’s career that’s a really good career. Being Australian and coming out being talked about as the next Karrie Webb… That’s a once in a lifetime career. If I was to win a LPGA tournament, that would be a really good career. It would have been nice to win already but I feel like I’ve still got a long way to go with my career. I don’t see myself retiring anytime soon. I’m still motivated.
Winning is a really hard thing to do. There have been a lot of girls who have come out and done it first up but there are a lot of great stories of players who have been out here for 10-plus years and have had their wins after that. I’m just going to be one of those.
The last few years I’ve gotten into a really good place mentally. Off the golf course my life’s great. Not that it wasn’t before but I have taken pressure off the bigger picture. Earlier on golf was everything and I wanted it really quickly and it didn’t happen. I haven’t really done anything too differently this year and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why I’m now getting the results. It’s just kind of come together. It’s been such a great start to the year and physically and mentally I feel great.
I’ve only been in contention a handful of times and it was fun to have the lead through 36 holes at the Pure Silk Championship a few weeks ago. I loved it and I would love to be in that position more often. That’s the plan. I was nervous going into the Saturday but if I wasn’t nervous there’d probably be something wrong with me. Just tried to embrace that. That’s what I play for. I don’t want to go out there and just have a top-30 finish. It definitely got the juices flowing and I realised that’s what I want to do. I want more of that.
We had an Aussie barbecue a couple of weeks ago in Orlando so just trying to be mates with the new girls on tour like Hannah Green and Minjee Lee. I don’t know that I can give them too much good advice but first and foremost being able to hear another Aussie accent out here is pretty nice.
I’m playing one practice round with Aussie amateur Emily Mahar. We both qualified at the Virginia site together and I know she’s doing great at Virginia Tech. I got the second spot and I saw her name in the playoff and it said ‘Australia’ next to it so I went up and gave her a fist bump and said, ‘Go and get that last spot’. She messaged me on Instagram a couple of weeks later and she said she’d put her name down next to mine on one of the practice days and said, ‘I’ll see you at Olympic.’
US Women’s Open
Round 1 tee times AEST
12.11am* Sarah Jane Smith, Kim Metraux, Gurleen Kaur (a)
12.48am Amelia Garvey, Mi Hyang Lee, Da Yeon Lee
12.55am* Minjee Lee, Ariya Jutanugarn, Amy Olson
1.17am* Hannah Green, Danielle Kang, Jin Young Ko
5.30am* Emily Mahar (a), Ssu Chia Cheng, Elizabeth Szokol
6.03am* Sarah Kemp, Alison Lee, Aneka Seumanutafa (a)
As he reflects on 70 years as a Member of the PGA of Australia this year, Brian Huxtable reveals the twist of fate that led him to golf and the extraordinary people he has met along the way. With Tony Webeck
My first exposure to golf was as a caddie at Riversdale Golf Club when I was 10. It was during the War; in 1944 I started to caddie at Riversdale. I knew one other fella who used to go there sometimes and he said there was a bit of money in it. Nobody had any money so I went… and never stopped. I’d work Saturday afternoons and Sunday and earning nearly half of what Dad was.
I’d never seen a course anywhere else so I didn’t realise Riversdale was considered a hilly golf course. That was the only one I knew! It was 18 holes, I knew that. I knew you had to hit it up the right-hand side of 17; you couldn’t hit left.
When I was 12 I caddied for a guy regularly on Saturday afternoons and he won the Club Championship after I coached him around having never played golf. He told George Naismith that if I ever wanted to use his clubs over Christmas I could borrow them. So I started playing the odd nine holes using mens clubs at 12 years of age.
I went from no golf at 13 to comfortably breaking 80 at 15. All of us kids learnt by caddying. I’d never hit a golf shot and here I am clubbing the bloke who won the club championships. On the last hole he wanted to hit a certain club and I said, ‘No way!’ I gave him his 7-iron and said, ‘This is the club.’ I’d never played a game of golf in my life!
There were only two high schools in those days and because I lived in Mt Waverley, Dandenong High was impossible to get to so I’d catch the train into town to go to school. But they wouldn’t take me because I was under age so I had to go back and do Year 8 again. In March or April that year George offered me a job in the shop so I raced home on the bike and told Mum and Dad, ‘I’ve got a job!’ I was only 13 at that time and became probably the first assistant pro that had never played 18 holes. By the time I was 17 I was good enough to be in the PGA.
The biggest job I had when I started at 13 was buffing the clubs. In those days every set of clubs had to be buffed on a buffer after the play. Winter time you’d first have to wash the mud off and then buff them, and there were 250 sets in the shop. And I was it.
We would make clubs up. We’d start off with heads, shafts and leather grips, nothing else. George was a master clubmaker and I got the job of filing the head into shape. It was a real art. Pros in those days were very important to golf clubs because there weren’t any golf sports stores; the only place you could get a golf club in the first five years I was at Riversdale would have been through a pro shop.
George was from the wooden-shaft days and he could make a club feel real good. He was absolutely flat strap making up wooden-shafted clubs because you had to know where to shape the shaft itself. You had to make it so that it could move a bit so it was a real art. They were artists.
I had a stroke of luck. George played in Sydney and brought home another trainee by the name of Peter Thomson. I improved more by watching Peter than anything anybody told me.
I played in assistant pro tournaments and when I turned 14 I won my first money up at Heidelberg. We were handicapped at the start and I started off on 20-something and didn’t do very well. The second tournament my boss wrote that I had improved and couldn’t have the same handicap, which didn’t suit me at all. I then went to Heidelberg and was off 17 or something and we played nine holes in the morning and 18 in the afternoon. I shot par for the first nine and walked in and said, ‘Half of 17,’ and the bloke said, ‘You’re not getting that handicap son.’ And he dropped me back to about five. I didn’t even win the damn thing!
I was assistant pro at Riversdale until I was 20 and then went to Green Acres and stayed there for four years. Then I went to be the club pro at Yarrawonga, which was the first bush club up that way with grass greens. I had three years there and it was the right age for me to take some responsibility and do a bit of development.
I won quite a few pro-ams over the years and came second at the Vic PGA in 1966 at Huntingdale. It makes you think how close we were to being good golfers. Geoff Flanagan was the first person that ever broke 290 around Huntingdale over four rounds; my score in coming second would have won the first three Australian Masters tournaments.
Thommo came home to Melbourne to have a rest one year in the middle of the British season. They talked him into playing at Woodlands on Queen’s Birthday and he knocked me off there. I beat all the locals but Thommo was just a bit better.
After Yarrawonga I spent three years at Medway Golf Club and I was playing pretty well at that stage, playing in all the major events. I played in the same tournament that Jack Nicklaus played his first tournament in Australia at The Australian Golf Club. Alan Heil and I knew Gary Player who brought him out so we asked if we could walk around with him. We walked around for Nicklaus’s first nine in Australia. I realised then that I was never going to be a Jack Nicklaus. We’d never seen the ball go so far.
There was a hole at The Australian along the freeway – maybe the sixth or seventh – and it was two woods and a wedge for most players. Somebody might get up there on a helping day. Nicklaus had never used a small before and he hit a drive down to where God would have thought he was cheating. He hit a 3-iron that landed on the back of the green and bounded 40 yards over the back. He hit a 6-iron and cleared the green with that as well. So here’s a hole of some 575 yards and he’s cleared the green with a drive and a six.
Following Medway I was at the public course at Waverley for 16 or 17 years but the hours became too much and I got the job at Kingston Heath. My wife at the time wanted to go back to the Murray so I went up to Barham for quite a few years. Then my son became a pro and he was in Darwin and wanted some help with the teaching in the area. I couldn’t handle the heat so I got a job as the pro at Eden on the South Coast and spent about eight years there.
Golf was at its absolute peak during my time at Waverley. We had golfers every day and I was giving up to 100 lessons a week. All the pros were the same at the public courses, we were starting golfers off all the time. I can still walk down the street and someone will yell out, ‘Hey Huxtable! I started golf at Waverley with you.’ If a person started and then got going you would recommend they go and enter a private club and join up. We were the feeder grounds for the other clubs in the area.
You had a process for beginners and they had to learn not to sway. Most people used to go sideways and try and lift the ball; you had to teach them to stay in between their feet and rotate. I think I was one of the first people to ever use that word in relation to the golf swing. I got sick of the word ‘pivot’. When I’m teaching now I still use the word ‘rotate’. It’s the best way to get people going.
I shot 69 around Southern one day and there was an 80mph wind blowing. Johnny Kennedy was the bloke I played with and he said it was the best round of golf he’d ever seen. I won it by about eight shots and they reckon I’d cheated. It was just one of those days when everything fell into place.
The average person who lasts at golf is usually a pretty nice person. I’ve got thousands of friends all through golf. We’ve got that mateship because it was a smaller pro game back then and the PGA pros were the top of the tree. There were very few tour players. If I was 22, 23 I could have been tempted to go away and have a go of being a tour player but I enjoyed the club life, the actual life I was leading in a pro shop.
Image: Yarrawonga Mulwala Golf Club Resort
Brisbane-based Tim Hart has secured the Hidden Valley Whitsundays North Queensland Series title after finishing in a five-way tie at the top at the De Goey Contractors Pioneer Valley Pro-Am at Pioneer Valley Golf Club on Sunday.
One shot clear of Vic PGA winner Chris Wood through three events, Hart delivered a customary late surge to post 4-under 68 at Pioneer Valley, a total matched by four others but bettered by none, Wood, Sam Brazel, Brett Rankin and Jay Mackenzie also returning scores of 68 at the challenging Pioneer Valley layout.
Winner of the Sarina Pro-Am and joint winner with Brazel and Rankin at the Mackay Pro-Am on Friday, Hart felt the pressure applied by Brazel early in Sunday’s round but responded as only he can, pitching in from 70 metres for eagle on his penultimate hole to share the daily spoils and take the lion’s share of the $10,000 bonus prize pool.
Hart’s final tally for the four-event series was 17-under par, one shot clear of Chris Wood on 16-under with Rankin a further shot back at 15-under.
“I could see I was a couple of shots behind with a few holes to go and I was just trying to keep in touch with Sam (Brazel),” Hart said following his round.
“I holed a 70-metre pitch shot for eagle on my 17th hole which got me to 4-under which helped.
“It is great to have the support of companies like Hidden Valley Whitsundays to make these series happen.
“Having this extra series bonus certainly helps the players financially in what has been a difficult 12 months.”
High on confidence after his first pro-am win in eight years on Friday, Brazel bolted out of the blocks with four birdies in his opening six holes but after a birdie at the par-5 15th dropped a crucial shot on the short par-4 second to remain at 4-under.
“It was great to be a part of this series and to provide the professionals with the opportunity to play for a bit more money,” said Brazel, the 2016 Hong Kong Open champion.
“Tim played great all week and I look forward to seeing his name on top of the leaderboard on the Australasian Tour later in the year.”
Tied for 18th at the Vic PGA at Moonah Links earlier in the year, Sunday’s win marked the second pro-am victory for Mackenzie and his first since the 2019 Virginia Pro-Am.
The next event on the Queensland schedule is the Moranbah Pro-Am starting on June 5.
View the final De Goey Contractors Pioneer Valley Pro-Am leaderboard at pga.org.au.
Local pair Ethan Andrews and Braden Becker have battled the elements and some of Australian golf’s most recognisable faces to share victory at the E-Z-GO Wembley Pro-Am at Wembley Golf Course in Perth on Sunday.
Where the Adidas Pro-Am Series events played in Western Australia this past week have been bathed in sunshine, Sunday’s weather at Wembley was as challenging as it gets with strong winds and heavy rain buffeting the field.
While the course held up admirably it was next to impossible to keep clubs and gloves dry, adding another element to a field full of well-credentialed Professionals.
A graduate of the PGA Member Pathway Program only a year ago, Lakelands Country Club Professional Ethan Andrews showed admirable composure to go bogey-free in his round of 5-under 67, a score matched by Becker if not in slightly different fashion.
Three-under through four holes, Becker appeared destined to register his first pro-am win since the Karratha Pro-Am in June 2019 but gave up shots at crucial times.
A bogey at the par-4 14th was followed by an eagle at the par-4 15th only to drop another shot at the par-3 16th before getting it straight back at the par-5 17th.
His only other birdie came at the par-5 first as he and Andrews shared top spot, one shot clear of last week’s Cottesloe Open winner Brody Martin and 2018 WA PGA champion Michael Long.
Now teaching at Wembley, six-time European Tour winner Brett Rumford led a logjam of seven players a shot further back in a tie for fifth with Cameron John, Glenn Joyner, Daniel Fox, Tom Power Horan, Andrew Kelly and 2018 WA PGA Trainee Championship winner Dale Howie.
View the final E-Z-GO Wembley Pro-Am leaderboard at pga.or.au.
Sam Brazel broke an eight-year drought on the PGA Tour of Australasia Adidas PGA Pro-Am Series but it is Tim Hart who has edged ahead in the 2021 Hidden Valley Whitsundays North Queensland Series.
Perfect pre-winter conditions greeted a field of 27 Professionals for the CMR Recycling Mackay Pro-Am and it took a late eagle from Hart to grab a share of the spoils alongside Brazel and 2020 Sunshine Tour Order of Merit winner Brett Rankin.
Winner of the 2016 Hong Kong Open on the European Tour, Brazel’s last pro-am win in Australia came at the Crowe Horwath Pro-Am in Yamba in September 2013 and was happy to share the spoils in Mackay with a round of 6-under 65.
“My last Pro-Am win was in 2013 so it was good to have a win today,” said Brazel, who fired seven birdies in the course of his round.
“Tim and Brett are great players so I am happy to share the win with them.”
Coming off his win at the CMR Recycling Sarina Pro-Am on Tuesday, Hart left his run late to join both Rankin and Brazel, an eagle at his final hole – the par-5 ninth – a spectacular finish to his round.
“I knew I was two behind standing on the last tee and that I needed to make eagle,” said Hart, who also made birdies at six and seven in a late flurry.
“I hit a good shot into the green but I still had to make a 20-foot putt to have any chance which I managed to make.”
Not only did the 20-foot eagle putt earn Hart a share of the winner’s purse on Friday but gives him a one-stroke edge in the Hidden Valley Whitsundays North Queensland Series that concludes with the De Goey Contractors Pioneer Valley Pro-Am in Mirani on Sunday.
Victorian PGA Championship winner and Bowen Pro-Am victor Chris Wood is in second position behind Wood with bonus prize money of $10,000 to be shared among the leading players.
