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The PGA of Australia is pleased to announce a new partnership with global money transfer specialist, OFX as the Official Foreign Exchange Partner of both the PGA of Australia and ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia. This partnership will see PGA Professionals and golf fans alike benefit from competitive bank-beating exchange rates, a seamless digital […]
The PGA of Australia is pleased to announce a new partnership with global money transfer specialist, OFX as the Official Foreign Exchange Partner of both the PGA of Australia and ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia.
This partnership will see PGA Professionals and golf fans alike benefit from competitive bank-beating exchange rates, a seamless digital platform and access to a dedicated OFXpert to help keep more of their money as it travels around the world.
“We are thrilled to have OFX join as a PGA Partner and we are delighted that despite the current challenges of COVID-19, brands such as OFX are forward-thinking and demonstrating that they understand golf’s value as one of the biggest crossover sports in terms of watching as a fan to then actively participating in the sport,” said Michael McDonald, Commercial Director of the PGA of Australia.
“We are seeing the reinvigoration in Australian professional golf that is currently occurring and we expect OFX’s timing in partnering with the PGA will provide positive impacts for their brand in Australia and abroad”.
Michael Judge, Head of ANZ, OFX said:“In removing the cost, complexity and uncertainty often associated with global money transfers, the partnership with the PGA is one we are incredibly proud of and we look forward to seeing the Australian golf industry continue to be promoted as one of the best on the global stage.”
And it seems members of the PGA community are already reaping the benefits, with OFX client Jose Carapeto sharing: “I just saved $4,500 using OFX today. Best tip I have had for a while. Just paid for my golf clubs and some. Happy days!!!!”
The PGA of Australia is proud to partner with OFX to give you a better, fairer way to move money globally.
About OFX
OFX grew
from the idea that there had to be a better, fairer way to move money around
the world. That was 20 years ago, and we’re still driven by the same mission
today.
We believe real help from real people counts, and that’s why we offer our
clients the best of both worlds – a easy to use digital platform, combined with
24/7 phone access to our Currency Experts (we call them OFXperts).
Foreign exchange is in our DNA. We help clients navigate the complexity of FX,
making it simple and easy to understand. Because when it comes to money,
informed decisions are the best decisions.
Keeping our clients’ money secure is our top priority. We’re an ASX listed
company and are monitored by over 50 regulators globally. To date, we have
helped over 1 million customers worldwide and have transferred over AU$150
billion.
Our clients are all over the globe, so we are too. We operate in offices in
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global expertise, delivered locally.
Their places in the pages of Australian golf history are secure yet Matt Jones and Marc Leishman both have unfinished business to attend to.
For Jones, a two-time Australian Open champion that put his name amongst the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Greg Norman and Peter Thomson as a multiple Stonehaven Cup winner, it’s a willingness to assert himself more internationally.
For Leishman, a five-time winner on the PGA Tour, a breakthrough major championship remains on the bucket list as does a win in one of our most prestigious events on the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia.
A four-time winner on the secondary Von Nida Tour including the 2008 Victorian PGA Championship, Leishman recorded his best Australian Open finish when he was tied for 10th behind Jones at The Australian in December and was runner-up to good mate Cameron Smith in a Sunday showdown at the 2018 Australian PGA Championship.
But the primary focus for the 36-year-old is going one better than his runner-up finish at the 2015 Open Championship and joining the illustrious list of Australian major champions.
“Obviously I want to play well every week that I play but I’m keeping in mind the fact that I’m not getting any younger and the opportunities to win majors are not going to be around forever,” Leishman said of his major focus.
“I felt like that this year, the British Open, the PGA and the Masters were three really good opportunities to win majors. It’s now the PGA and the Masters.”
His memorable chip-in to defeat Matt Kuchar at the first playoff hole of the 2014 Shell Houston Open remains Jones’ sole PGA TOUR triumph to date but the newly-turned 40-year-old is adamant that there are more wins in store in the future.
“I definitely think it’s within me,” Jones said recently.
“The game is changing, as you can see with what Bryson is doing, it’s heading in a different direction. But I’m still going to have chances to win the golf tournament
“It’s just up to me if I can make the putts when I need to or hit the golf shot when I need to.
“I think I can do that. I still believe, yes, that I have many more years of chances to win golf tournaments.”
They already boast wonderful careers that in the eyes of fans place them among our greatest of all time, but the records of Matt Jones and Marc Leishman are far from complete.
Matt Jones
Career wins: 3
PGA TOUR wins: 1
Australasian Tour wins: 2
Australian Open: Won (2015, 2019)
Australian PGA: T30 (2017)
Marc Leishman
Career wins: 12
PGA TOUR wins: 5
Australasian Tour wins: 4 (Von Nida Tour)
Australian Open: T10 (2019)
Australian PGA: 2nd (2018)
A former Caboolture Golf Club greenkeeper up against a child prodigy and son of a PGA Professional.
If you were making a Disney movie Rod Pampling and Adam Scott would go head-to-head in the final round, the gritty underdog up against the dashing superstar on the rise.
And, as Pampling has proven on a number of occasions throughout his career, there is plenty of fight in this underdog.
For all of their differences there are similarities between our latest third-round combatants in the countdown to identifying Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
Both had their grounding in golf on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Pampling tending to the fairways as a teenager at Caboolture before completing his traineeship at Bribie Island Golf Club. Scott, born in Adelaide, moved to Queensland with his family when he was nine, first on the Sunshine Coast and later the Gold Coast where he completed his schooling at The Hills International School.
As Scott was gaining recognition as a junior for the classical look of his swing and the tournament wins he was accumulating, Pampling quickly became renowned for the quality of his ball-striking, a powerful move through the ball making him a formidable player.
Five years after turning professional and eight months shy of his 30th birthday Pampling claimed his maiden professional title at the 1999 Canon Challenge, finishing three strokes clear of a 21-year-old Victorian by the name of Geoff Ogilvy.
Shortly afterwards Pampling teamed up with fellow Gary Edwin disciple Paul Gow and criss-crossed America by car playing any tournament that would have them, ultimately graduating to the secondary Buy.com Tour, twice losing in a playoff in the 2001 season but doing enough to graduate to the PGA TOUR the following year.
He became a PGA TOUR winner for the first time in 2004 when an eagle at the 71st hole banked five points in the modified stableford format to win The International, rose to a career high of 22 in the world on the back of his win at the 2006 Bay Hill Invitational and then shot 60 in the first round and held off Brooks Koepka on Sunday to claim the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open a decade later, extending his PGA TOUR career into an 18th year in 2019 and passing $16 million in prize money.
Although his only other victory on the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia came in a playoff against Marcus Fraser at the 2008 Sportsbet Australian Masters Pampling was a regular presence on Aussie leaderboards, finishing top five at the Australian Open and Australian PGA Championship a combined nine times since 2002.
Scott’s resume is as glittering as you would expect of a player destined for greatness.
From the moment he demolished the field by 10 strokes to win the Gleneagles Scottish PGA Championship the golf world were on tenterhooks as to what the hot new Aussie export would deliver next.
In his first year on the PGA TOUR in 2003 he took Tiger Woods to a 19th hole in the semi-finals of the AGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and a year later made a clutch up-and-down at the 72nd hole to win the 2004 Players Championship.
That was the second in what now stands at 14 PGA TOUR wins, the most famous of which was his history-making triumph at The Masters in 2013, returning home that summer to a heroes welcome and coming within a single shot of completing the Australian Triple Crown, winning the PGA and Masters titles before he was pipped by a shot by Rory McIlroy at the Australian Open at Royal Sydney.
Adam Scott
Career wins: 31
Major wins: 1 (2013 Masters)
PGA TOUR wins: 14
Australasian Tour wins: 6
Australian PGA: Won (2013, 2019)
Australian Open: Won (2009)
Rod Pampling
Career wins: 7
PGA TOUR wins: 3
Australasian Tour wins: 1
Australian Open: 2nd (2014)
Australian PGA: 2nd (2003)
They exist on either end of the professional golf spectrum yet share a common trait of using golf as a means of escape.
Peter Thomson, the cultured intellectual who crafted artistry with hickory and balata, saw golf as little more than a pastime, a conduit to indulging in his true passions of classical music, literature, art and opera.
Golf provided an escape too to Jason Day but with rather more desperate undertones.
Raised in Beaudesert west of the Gold Coast, Day was introduced to the game by his father and a 3-wood rescued from the local rubbish tip.
In recent years Day has described his father as a “violent alcoholic” and he passed when Day was just 12 years of age.
Life at that point offered the talented but tempestuous pre-teen with two alternatives, his mother Dening’s decision to send him to the acclaimed Hills International golf school leading toward a more productive path.
In his early days at Hills the rebellious side of Day would occasionally emerge yet with the careful guidance of coach Colin Swatton he was feted as one of the best junior golfers on the planet by the time he reached Year 12.
Day saw opportunity in golf not only to rise to a status of No.1 in the world but to cultivate a family environment with wife Ellie that was far less harsh than that which he endured.
As their motivations were vastly different, so too were their approaches to the game.
Thomson hit only as many balls on the range as was necessary to understand his swing for that particular day, bending golf courses to his will with a gentle grace that belied its expert execution.
“His game is based on touch, instinct and improvisation, and he revels in the challenge of running up approaches to the hard greens on the fast links of Britain,” author Terry Smith wrote in The Complete Book of Australian Golf.
Day, born when Thomson was 58 years of age, is a product of the modern game, where launch monitors, swing vision and statistics are the measures of a golfer’s development.
It is why Steve Williams – who began his career as a caddie by carrying Thomson’s bag in the 1976 New Zealand Open – struggled in a short-lived stint working with Day in 2019.
“I would openly describe him as a modern player,” Williams says of Day in the July issue of Australian Golf Digest. “He uses a lot of technology, relies on technology, whereas I am, no question, an old-school caddie.
“I caddied by eyesight and by feel. Given all the technology that is available today, it was very difficult to come back and caddie in this era.”
As we pit their records on the golf course against each other in our continuing search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer, their differences once again make comparisons problematic.
With five British Open championships and 95 wins across the globe – including 44 on the Australasian Tour – Thomson was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1988 regarded as one of the finest exponent of links golf to ever live.
Where Thomson somewhat shunned it, Day has spent virtually his entire career in the United States. Among his 12 PGA TOUR titles are the 2015 US PGA Championship and 2016 THE PLAYERS Championship, wins that make him Hall of Fame eligible once he celebrates his 45th birthday in 2032.
They are polar opposites yet share a place in the annals of Australian golf as two of our most accomplished players of all time.
Peter Thomson
Career wins: 95
Major wins: 5 (British Open 1954-56, 1958, 1965)
PGA TOUR wins: 1
Australasian Tour wins: 44
Australian Open: Won (1951, 1967, 1972)
Australian PGA: Won (1967)
Jason Day
Career wins: 17
Major wins: 1 (2015 US PGA Championship)
PGA TOUR wins: 12
Australian Open: T4 (2011)
Australian PGA: T9 (2011)
This is where it gets tough.
Major champions up against major champions; leading female players of the present against some of the legends of our past; icons of Australian golf going head-to-head.
We started with 64 of the best golfers our country has ever produced and now, as we enter the third round, just 16 remain vying to be crowned Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
Bruce Devlin was the final person to advance past the second round when he edged out reigning Women’s PGA champion Hannah Green by the narrowest of margins on Tuesday and will now face off against Steve Elkington for a spot in the semi-finals.
Australian golf fans have been given the mandate to lodge their votes through the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia Facebook page for who they believe should win each match and PGA of Australia CEO Gavin Kirkman trusts that their knowledge and passion will see a worthy winner emerge.
“I’ve been fascinated to see how the voting has gone with each of the matches to be honest,” Kirkman said.
“There have been a few surprises along the way but I don’t think there is any doubt that the final 16 Aussie golfers are worthy of their place in the third round of Australia’s Greatest Golfer.
“I don’t envy the decisions fans will have to make in these exciting matches. I’ll be watching on with interest to see which way they go.”
The first of the round three matches on Tuesday will see five-time British Open champion Peter Thomson pitted against 2015 US PGA champion and former world No.1 Jason Day.
Although he himself deferred Australia’s greatest status to Karrie Webb before his passing in June 2018, Thomson is widely regarded as our most accomplished male golfer with a record in The Open championship that almost defies belief.
Although he didn’t venture into the US too often at the peak of his powers, Thomson joined the Champions Tour in 1984 and won 11 times in the space of just 13 months before walking away.
“I actually asked him, I said, ‘Thommo, how come you didn’t play anymore on the Champions Tour?’” recalls Peter Senior, winner of 21 PGA Tour of Australasia titles.
“His answer? ‘I got embarrassed.’ I said, ‘What from?’ And he said, ‘Winning every week. These guys reckon I couldn’t play.’
“I’ve never heard of anyone being embarrassed about winning but he certainly was.”
Current PGA TOUR colleagues Matt Jones and Marc Leishman feature in a mouth-watering showdown, major champions Ian Baker-Finch and David Graham will no doubt divide the opinions of fans while 2006 US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy is up against our all-time greatest major champion, Karrie Webb.
Round three
Peter Thomson v Jason Day
Matt Jones v Marc Leishman
Ian Baker-Finch v David Graham
Adam Scott v Rod Pampling
Geoff Ogilvy v Karrie Webb
Greg Norman v Aaron Baddeley
Kel Nagle v Minjee Lee
Steve Elkington v Bruce Devlin
The likeness is striking but the greatest achievement in the newly unveiled Arnold Palmer sculpture at Sanctuary Cove Golf and Country Club is the magical glint in the eye.
Shunning the fanfare that would normally be associated with a permanent tribute to one of golf’s most iconic figures, Sanctuary Cove Golf Club President Mick McDonald and sculptor Liam Hardy quietly completed the installation early on Tuesday morning and left for members to marvel.
Renowned for his work on sculptures of Queensland sporting legends such as Wally Lewis, Allan Langer, John Eales and Laura Geitz, Liam Hardy of Sculpt Studios studied hundreds of photos of Palmer to ascertain exactly what made him ‘The King’.
Pleated pants bought from a Gold Coast Op Shop were worn to get the fabric creases just right, the wave of hair curled over for perfect perpetuity and just enough wrinkles in the face to mark a time when he was golf’s first superstar.
But it is in the eyes where the Palmer resemblance comes to life.
Squinting ever so slightly into the rising run and standing centrally between the first and 10th tees of The Pines Golf Course that he himself designed, even a bronzed reproduction has a way of drawing you in just as he did to all who met him up until his passing in September 2016.
“There was a cheeky twinkle in his eye,” explains Hardy, who estimates that it took the equivalent of 12 weeks full-time work over six months to complete the sculpture.
“Looking at hundreds of different photos you kind of feel like you get to know him. It would have been a pretty special thing to have met him because he looked like such a character.
“He had such a wonderful career and was so successful but I realised how important it was for him to be remembered and immortalised because he was the first celebrity golfer.
“Someone told me that he was one of the main reasons that they started putting golf on TV, so people could watch this really charismatic player.”
Donated to the club by Mick McDonald and his wife Robbie, the Palmer sculpture further embeds the treasured association between the seven-time major champion and Sanctuary Cove.
The club’s inaugural president when Sanctuary Cove opened in 1988 with a gala event featuring Frank Sinatra and Whitney Houston, Palmer’s influence abounds at the 36-hole facility.
Arnie’s Café adjacent to The Palms Golf Course and his synonymous umbrella insignia enforce a connection between club and legend that Executive General Manager Paul Sanders says is only fitting for the only Arnold Palmer-designed golf course in Australia.
“To this day, our goal is to carry out and stay aligned only with the Palmer brand,” says Sanders, who is preparing to open The Palms Golf Course to the public again on Thursday, July 2.
“When I first started here there wasn’t enough of it. There was no Palmer branding on any of our merchandise or on our club website; we really weren’t geared to how prestigious that brand is.
“It’s certainly been one of my goals, to realign ourselves back to the history of the game.
“Greg Norman has designed golf courses in Australia, Peter Thomson has designed many courses in Australia, Jack Nicklaus has designed a number of courses… It is quite prestigious that there is only one Arnold Palmer-designed golf course in Australia. There is no other.
“We consider ourselves very lucky that arguably one of the greatest players to ever play the game came to Queensland, came to the Gold Coast, came to Sanctuary Cove and oversaw the design of one of the most beautiful golf courses in Australia.
“It’s spine tingling really.”
Although the motivation was to provide something for the enjoyment of members, Sanders expects it to become a popular ‘selfie spot’ for public guests playing The Palms, such as is the case at Bay Hill Club and Lodge, Palmer’s home for many years.
“I’ve been to Bay Hill a few times and you have to line up for a long time to take a selfie at the statue of Mr Palmer there,” Sanders says.
“I would expect that the public playing The Palms, as they make their way to the ninth tee will certainly want to come past and pay their respects by taking a selfie with Mr Palmer.
“Then they can make use of it as they see fit with their social media platforms.”
As he stopped to admire the completion of his latest work on Tuesday, Hardy said that there is one final vote of confidence that he hopes to receive in the coming days or weeks.
“It’s one thing for people to say it’s a good likeness but if the family says it is a good likeness, then that’s probably the greatest compliment I could receive.”
Images: Kurt Thomson & Sculpt Studios
There are thousands of podcasts out there but if you’re anything like us, you’ll be searching for those on the topic of golf.
Whether you’re on the way to the course, on the driving range, practising at home or on the putting green, listening to a podcast is a great way to learn while hearing the latest news and greatest stories on your favourite topics.
Here we have collected just a few to get you started.
The 19th Tee podcast provides a future-focused and modern analysis on all things happening in the world of golf both on home soil and around the world. Hosts Kieran Marsh and Nathan Drudi tackle the big issues facing the sport while shining a light on Australian golfers around the world including recent guests Daniel Gale, Zach Murray and Jake McLeod.
Formerly ranked as the number one amateur golfer in the world, golf has taken PGA Touring Professional Brady Watt all over the world. In The Wattsup Podcast Brady shares tales from life on the road as an amateur, his experiences coming up against the best in the world and together with fellow ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia Professionals, he discusses the ins and outs of life on the Australasian tour with a bit of AFL talk in between.
PGA Professional Matt Guyatt has done it all, from chasing glory on golf’s world stage to teaching the next generation of stars the tricks of the trade. In this new podcast Matt chats to a range of sports stars from former Hawthorn AFL star Luke Hodge to Masters Champion Adam Scott about their journey to the top and what it took to get there.
There’s just something about golf that’s ever so slightly addictive and the Golf Australia Magazine team knows it. Together with a range of special guests, the Golf Australia Magazine team goes on a quest to discover just what it is about the sport that we all love that keeps us coming back time after time.
Renowned mental performance coach Jamie Glazier works with numerous Australian Tour Professionals including European Tour winner Lucas Herbert on improving the mental side of a player’s game. Together with golf podcaster Ross Flannigan, the Mental Mastery Golf Podcast provides an insight into the importance of a sound mental game and the hurdles both players and Professionals face daily.
As one of Australia’s longest-running golf podcasts Inside the Ropes provides an inside-take on all of the latest golf news from around the world. Hosts Andy Maher and Mark Hayes are joined by a myriad of regular guests including PGA Professional Mike Clayton and respected golf broadcaster Ali Whitaker alongside many Australia’s high-profile Professionals and industry specialists.
Dating a major champion would provide its own motivation but it is Hannah Green’s growing influence on the game of golf in Australia that has inspired Jarryd Felton to also start giving back.
On Friday Green and Felton will face off against each other in the WA Golf Guns Charity Shootout Challenge at Gosnells Golf Club in Perth, Green partnering with 2019 IMG Academy Junior World Championship runner-up Maddison Hinson-Tolchard against Felton and WA Boys’ State team member Josiah Gilbert.
It’s the first of two charity events that Green and Felton have put their names to in addition to the time they are spending with juniors at their respective home clubs of Mount Lawley and Gosnells.
Friday’s nine-hole match that will be broadcast on Instagram Live from 4pm AEST will raise money for Challenge and the Wright family and on 5 July Green and Felton will be joined by Braden Becker, Hayden Hopewell, Haydn Barron and Kathryn Norris in a ‘Birdies for Breast Cancer’ initiative at The Cut Golf Club.
Felton acknowledges that he is playing second fiddle to the reigning Women’s PGA champion and Greg Norman Medal winner but has been inspired to do what he can to support worthy causes and promote golf in a positive manner.
“Hannah’s doing a lot of stuff for Mount Lawley playing with the juniors which has been great and I thought I could do something similar,” said the 2017 NZ PGA champion.
“I was never really too big on it but what she has been doing made me want to get involved as well.
“I’m obviously not in as good a position as Hannah is in, I’m really just following on behalf of her.
“She’s in a position where she can really grow the game and perhaps one day take over from what Karrie Webb has done.
“She knows herself that she’s got some shoes to fill in that department. Once Karrie finishes up I think she and Minjee (Lee) will be the ones to grow the game at a junior level in particular.
“It’s been a tough road the past three or four months sitting around and doing nothing so if we can do our best to help out these families and raise some money – and stay competitive – then that’s something positive.”
Both the causes that Green and Felton are supporting in the next few weeks are close to their heart.
In addition to raising funds for Challenge, Friday’s match will benefit the Wright family who lost their son Luan in tragic circumstances less than four years ago.
“I knew Luan on a personal level. He was a junior member at the golf club for quite some years before he passed away so I knew him quite well,” Felton revealed.
“It was pretty crazy because it all happened so fast. He was fine one day – he was doing his Year 12 exams – and then all of a sudden he had a brain tumour and no one knew what was going on.
“It was only three or four months later that he passed away so it was quite sudden.
“It just happened way too fast and just shows you how short life is that’s for sure.”
Captain of the WA Womens State team, Kathryn Norris’s mother Lynda is currently undergoing treatment for breast cancer and is the inspiration for the 5 July fundraiser where the six golfers will attempt to play 18 holes in 27-under par playing a twoball ambrose format and try to raise $20,000.
“We grew up with Kathryn in the state team,” Felton adds.
“Hannah and I are both a little bit older than Kathryn but she grew up playing golf around the same time as us so we know the family quite well.
“She asked if Hannah and I could come on board to help out and we jumped at it.”
While both days are first and foremost in aid of charity, Felton concedes that it is an opportunity to get the competitive juices flowing again before both he and Green return to the European and LPGA tours in the near future.
“We play nine holes every now and again and it’s pretty competitive sometimes,” said Felton.
“We don’t play as much golf together as what people would think. Coming into tournament time we play a fair bit together but at the moment Hannah’s going to Mount Lawley and I come to Gosnells so we go in two separate directions.
“Hopefully it’s not over too quickly on Friday and Josiah and I don’t get fleeced too much.”
The WA Golf Guns Charity Shootout Challenge will be broadcast live on Friday at 4pm AEST through the Gosnells Golf Club Instagram page (@gosnellsgolfclub).
If you would like to support the ‘Birdies for Breast Cancer Challenge’ on July 5 visit the GoFundMe page at www.gofundme.com/f/birdies-for-breast-cancer-challenge.
At 82 years of age, Bruce Devlin knows a life tending to drains and unblocking toilets around the Riverina would have taken its toll.
If it wasn’t for an impromptu lunch visit by Norman von Nida in April of 1961, Devlin has no doubt he’d be nursing the aches and pains that come from 50 years of crawling and contorting his way into confined spaces.
The individual winner of the inaugural Eisenhower Trophy in 1958 and Australian Open champion at Lake Karrinyup whilst still an amateur in 1960, Devlin had not considered earning a living by playing golf as a career path worth pursuing.
He now stands as one of the finest players Australia has ever produced and in contention to be crowned Australia’s Greatest Golfer. Devlin accounted for Frank Phillips in Round 1 and now faces off against 2019 Women’s PGA champion Hannah Green for a place in the quarter-finals.
Working in his father’s plumbing business around Goulburn and up into Canberra, the reigning Australian Open champion returned home for lunch one day this April to find not only his wife Gloria waiting for him but an unexpected guest with a proposal too good to refuse.
“I really didn’t have much interest in turning pro to be quite honest with you and then I came home that lunchtime and Norman was sitting in the kitchen with my wife and they talked me into turning pro,” recalls Devlin from his home in Texas.
“I was in the plumbing business with my dad, I was going through technical college… I really had no intentions of turning pro.
“It was a bit of a shock to come back to the apartment that my wife and I had in Goulburn and see Norman sitting in the little kitchen that we had.
“I don’t know how long he’d arrived before lunch but obviously he and Gloria had had some conversations before I got home.
“Whatever happened as a result of that is history.”
Having once told a young Devlin he’d be better off plumbing than pursuing life as a pro golfer, so confident was von Nida in Devlin’s ability that he effectively bank-rolled his switch into the play-for-pay ranks.
“It was a financial decision. In those days I was making $175 a week from my dad’s busines and Von said to me that he thought I should turn pro,” says Devlin.
“To convince me he said that I could give him all of my prize money and he’d make sure that I got a cheque for $50,000.
“That was a ridiculous number to me but he said that if I turned pro that I’d make more than that.
“That sounded like a hell of a lot of money to me in those days.”
Devlin would go on to win eight times on the PGA TOUR and earn $US907,069 in prize money, von Nida never once putting out his hand per the original agreement.
“He never did. Never ever did,” Devlin adds.
As for that ‘sliding doors’ moment almost 60 years ago, there is no doubt in Devlin’s mind what his alternate reality was destined to be.
“I’d still be a plumber in Australia. I’m sure that’s what would have happened,” said the two time Australian PGA champion.
Bruce Devlin
Career wins: 31
PGA TOUR wins: 8
Australasian Tour wins: 19
Australian Open: Won (1960)
Australian PGA: Won (1969, 1970)
Hannah Green
Career wins: 7
LPGA Tour wins: 2
ALPG Tour wins: 2
Women’s Australian Open: 3rd (2018)
Oates Vic Open: T3 (2018)
Iron Man v Smiling Assassin. Bruce Crampton and Minjee Lee, two great Australian golfers whose records remain relatively underappreciated given all that they have accomplished.
As we near the quarter-final stage of our search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer, Crampton and Lee pit their impressive records against each other having accounted for Katherine Kirk and Brett Ogle respectively in Round 1.
An Australian Open champion at just 21 years of age when he birdied the final two holes of the 1956 championship at Royal Sydney, Crampton soon took his game to the United States where he made his name as Australia’s first million-dollar golfer.
A winner of 14 PGA TOUR events and a 20-time victor on the Champions Tour – including seven wins in 1986 alone – Crampton’s greatest American season came in 1973 when he won four times and was runner-up in five additional tournaments, his prize money for the year of $US274,266 pushing him past the million-dollar mark, joining Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Billy Casper and Lee Trevino as the first players to achieve the feat.
When it came to the majors, Crampton was regularly in contention yet was thwarted time and again by the most prolific major champion of them all, Jack Nicklaus.
Top five at both the US Open and US PGA Championship in 1963, Crampton was runner-up in four majors between 1972 and 1975, Nicklaus his conqueror on all four occasions.
Like Crampton, Minjee Lee is yet to win a major championship but time is most definitely on her side.
Winner of the 2010 Western Australia Amateur at just 14 years of age, Lee created a slice of history when she claimed the 2012 US Junior Girls championship, adding the Australian Women’s Amateur in both 2013 and 2014.
When she won the Oates Vic Open in February 2014 Lee rose to No.1 in the world amateur rankings, joining the professional ranks after leading Australia to victory at the Espirito Santo Trophy in September that year.
She became a LPGA Tour winner nine days before her 19th birthday when she claimed the 2015 Kingsmill Championship and has added four more victories since, the most recent the Hugel-Air Premia LA Open in April 2019.
Ranked as high as No.2 in the world, Lee has finished inside the top 10 at major championships three times to date, her best result a tie for third at the 2017 ANA Inspiration.
Bruce Crampton
Career wins: 45
PGA TOUR wins: 14
Champions Tour wins: 20
Australasian Tour wins: 6
Australian Open: Won (1956)
Minjee Lee
Career wins: 7
LPGA Tour wins: 5
ALPG Tour wins: 2
Women’s Australian Open: T3 (2017)
Australian Ladies Masters: 2nd (2014)
