The 19th Archives - Page 16 of 20 - PGA of Australia

Thomson v Appleby kicks off Round 2 of Australia’s Greatest Golfer


A refined statesman and a blonde bomber with a fondness for hotted-up cars; on the surface Peter Thomson and Stuart Appleby have little in common.

Yet look slightly beneath the surface and the pair share a grounding on the Melbourne sandbelt, a historic Presidents Cup triumph and a place among the greatest golfers Australia has ever produced.

The second round of our search to name Australia’s Greatest Golfer begins on Thursday with Thomson and Appleby to go head-to-head in an online vote by golf fans to be conducted on the PGA of Australia’s social media channels.

The No.1 seed on the basis of his five major championships and 95 wins around the world, Thomson moved into the second round with a victory over Peter McWhinney while Thomson’s close friend Ian Stanley was edged out by Appleby in their Round 1 clash.

Born in Cohuna on the Murray River, Appleby was just two years of age when Thomson won the last of his three Victorian Opens at Yarra Yarra Golf Club in 1973. He would later go on to grace those same fairways as a pennant player for Yarra Yarra after his talents as a junior led to invitations to the big smoke in Melbourne.

Located less than seven kilometres from Thomson’s spiritual home at Victoria Golf Club, Yarra Yarra and the surrounding sandbelt courses gave Appleby the grounding and sophistication to his game that would see him accrue nine wins on the PGA TOUR and record top-10 finishes in each of golf’s four majors.

Appleby had won two PGA TOUR titles and was ranked No.33 in the world when Thomson took charge of the International team to contest the 1998 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne and the pair would have a significant impact on the upset win over the superstar US team.

Thomson’s calm demeanour coupled with his innate understanding of Royal Melbourne’s subtleties gave the International team a foundation that would instil confidence belying their respective positions on the world ranking.

Starting strongly was critical and with Appleby contributing 2.5 points in the opening two days – including a 2 & 1 win alongside Vijay Singh against the 1997 Open champion Justin Leonard and a rising star named Tiger Woods – the International team established a virtually unassailable eight-point buffer heading into the Sunday singles.

More than a decade later Appleby and Thomson would once again join forces, both part of a consortium that redeveloped the Yarra Bend golf course and driving range that now stands as one of the most progressive golf facilities in Melbourne complete with an 18-hole course, driving range with TopTracer installed and mini golf for those who prefer fun with the flatstick.

It is a shared legacy that further entrenches their respective places in the proud history of Australian golf.

Peter Thomson
Career wins: 95                                                                            
Major wins: 5 (British Open 1954-56, 1958, 1965)
Australasian Tour wins: 44                                                        
Australian Open: Won (1951, 1967, 1972)                             
Australian PGA:  Won (1967)        

Stuart Appleby
Career wins: 17
PGA TOUR wins: 9
Australasian Tour wins: 3
Australian Open: Won (2001)
Australian PGA: T2 (1997)


Two of Queensland’s most accomplished champions go head-to-head as Adam Scott takes on Norman von Nida in the second round of our search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer.

Adam Scott wins most of the popular votes in which he’s involved yet Norman von Nida made a career out of defying the odds.

Two of the all-time greats of Australian golf face off in Round 2 in our search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer, a match-up that will test the loyalties of Queenslanders and old-timers alike.

A whip of a man with hardened forearms that Craig Parry would be proud of, the diminutive von Nida was standing up to the best players in the world first as a teenage caddie at Royal Queensland and later as a pioneer for Aussie golfers travelling to Europe to further their careers.

He won the Australian PGA Championship four times in the space of six years and three Australian Opens between 1950-1953 yet it was his almost mystical understanding of the relationship between clubhead and golf ball that made him such a revered figure within Australian golf.

Even as his eyes failed him von Nida could offer instruction to the likes of Gary Player, Greg Norman and Nick Faldo purely by the sound the ball made as it soared into the distance and is regarded by the game’s most notable names as a genius of bunker play.

His sometimes gruff nature would impact his ability to win a popularity contest yet three-time PGA champion Peter Senior has no doubt that von Nida belongs in the highest of company when talking of our country’s greatest golfers.

“When you talk about great players you’re always going to talk about von Nida,” said Senior, who has a fight of his own in Round 2 having drawn Karrie Webb.

“As a fighter, you couldn’t get anyone more dog-determined than he was.

“I used to play with ‘The Von’ at Redcliffe Golf Club every Friday.

“His eyesight was going by that stage but he still never missed a shot.

“He’d tee it up and hit it down there and turn and say, ‘Where did that go?’ You’d tell him that it went out of bounds and he’d fire back with, ‘Not it didn’t!’ He knew exactly where it went.

“Gary Edwin used to do a few seminars and clinics with Moe Norman in Canada and he said there was no better ball-striker than that guy. The Von had that aura about him as well.

“It’s amazing how some guys just adapt to the game.”

Given that von Nida’s career straddled World War II and the US was largely a closed shop, opportunities to pay in major championships were scarce yet in three straight years from 1946 he finished no worse than a tie for sixth at The Open Championship, his best a tie for third in 1948.

But amongst all his accomplishments – including a seven-win season in Europe in 1947 – a major win proved elusive, an achievement Senior has no doubt would have advanced his standing among our most feted champions.

“Majors put the spotlight on you. If he’d won a major then the spotlight might have been more on him,” Senior said.

“Our greatest, most accomplished player is Peter Thomson and then you’ve got Karrie Webb and Greg Norman. Then you’ve got Wayne Grady, Ian Baker-Finch, Geoff Ogilvy, all people who have won majors and they are in a different category than everybody else.

“You can be a good player – you can be a great player – but until you’re a multiple major winner I don’t think you can put yourself in that category where people put you on a pedestal.”

Norman von Nida
Career wins: 48
European Tour wins: 14
Australasian Tour wins: 32
Australian Open: Won (1950, 1952, 1953)
Australian PGA: Won (1946, 1948, 1950, 1951)

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)


Adam Scott v Norman von Nida. Greg Norman v Wayne Grady. Karrie Webb v Peter Senior. David Graham v Robert Allenby. The search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer enters the second round on Thursday with mouth-watering clashes that pit our most feted heroes head-to-head for the chance to be crowned our all-time No.1.

The opening round of matches wrapped up on Tuesday with Hannah Green advancing against Bob Shearer while Rod Pampling made a late charge – courtesy of some rousing calls to his fanbase through social media – to earn 51.3 per cent of the vote in his match-up with Jack Newton.

All 14 of Australia’s major champions successfully made their way through to the last 32 but when the field is whittled down to 16 at least one will have fallen by the wayside.

Greg Norman’s influence on Australian golf is perhaps without peer and continues to this day but in the second round he will have to move past fellow Queensland major champion Wayne Grady.

Two years Grady’s senior, Norman turned professional in 1975 and in his fourth tournament on tour claimed the West Lakes Classic in Adelaide by five strokes. Three years later Grady would make his breakthrough professional win in the very same tournament, the prize money providing the financial injection he needed to take his game overseas.

Another of the compelling round two matches also features a pair of Queenslanders, modern day great Adam Scott and one of the true trailblazers for Australian golf, Norman von Vida.

Credited with paving the way for players such as Peter Thomson and Kel Nagle to venture to Europe to further their careers, von Nida was once referred to as the ‘Bradman of golf’ and had an innate understanding of ball-striking that he would share with greats of the game over the span of some 50 years, even as his eyesight failed him.

Von Nida’s extraordinary tally of tournament victories – including three Australian Open wins and six separate runner-up finishes – is one that no other Australian golfer can match yet Scott has a trump card swathed in green that is also without peer.

As our first and – to this date – only winner of the US Masters, Scott will forever hold a unique place in Australian golf folklore, vowing to add more major silverware to his collection as he nears his 40th birthday ranked No.6 in the world.

Our most prolific major winner Karrie Webb faces a challenge against fan favourite Peter Senior in yet another all-Queensland affair while two of our best modern-day players in Geoff Ogilvy and John Senden meet in another clash sure to cause consternation amongst the voting public.

Voting will recommence from Thursday 7 May on the PGA Tour of Australasia Facebook page. Don’t forget to have your say on who will become Australia’s Greatest Golfer.

Round 2 matches
Peter Thomson v Stuart Appleby
Adam Scott v Norman von Nida
Marc Leishman v Jan Stephenson
Robert Allenby v David Graham
Craig Parry v Kel Nagle
Peter Senior v Karrie Webb
Greg Norman v Wayne Grady
Steve Elkington v Rachel Hetherington
Peter Lonard v Jason Day
Rod Pampling v Graham Marsh
Matt Jones v Peter Fowler
Ian Baker-Finch v Greg Chalmers
Bruce Crampton v Minjee Lee
Geoff Ogilvy v John Senden
Aaron Baddeley v Jim Ferrier
Hannah Green v Bruce Devlin


Comparing what Bob Shearer achieved over his decorated 30-year career and that of Hannah Green – yet to chalk up five years as a pro – might be most difficult match of the opening round of our search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer.

A winner on both the PGA TOUR and European Tour, Shearer was a colossus of Australian golf throughout the 1970s and into the ‘80s, winning the Australasian Order of Merit title on four occasions between 1974 and 1982.

Winner of the Australian Amateur in 1969 when he defeated Ross Murray 6&5 in the final, Shearer’s first professional victory came at the 1974 Coca-Cola Lakes Open, the first in what would be an unblemished record in playoffs on the Australasian Tour.

Shearer’s 18 wins locally came invariably in two ways, crushing the field or breaking hearts in playoffs.

His third win of 1974 was a nine-stroke victory at the Chrysler Classic at Royal Melbourne, a margin of victory that he would repeat at the 1976 New Zealand Airlines Classic.

On the back of his success in Australia in 1974 Shearer enjoyed a breakout year in Europe in 1975, winning twice in the space of three weeks and finishing the year fifth on the Order of Merit.

Shearer spent much of the next decade playing in the US but would return to Europe later in his career, notching four wins on the Seniors Tour, the first of which came just two weeks after his 50th birthday.

The Victorian’s career year came in 1982 when he not only won on the PGA TOUR for the first time but claimed the New South Wales Open and Australian Open, adding the Australian PGA Championship to his career resume 12 months later.

Evaluating Green’s career is problematic in that the best is surely ahead of her but she has already joined a select band of Australian golfers.

Under the tutelage of Ritchie Smith who has also guided siblings Minjee and Min Woo Lee to golf’s upper echelons, Green turned professional in 2016 after an amateur career that featured wins at the Dunes Medal and Victorian Women’s Amateur.

If her amateur accomplishments perhaps didn’t match up to those of others to join the pro ranks she displayed a winning mentality from the moment she stepped into the play-for-pay ranks.

Playing on the secondary Symetra Tour in the US Green won three times, was named Rookie of the Year and finished second on the Order of Merit, guaranteeing a rapid elevation to the LPGA Tour in 2018.

Her third-place finish at the Women’s Australian Open was Green’s only top-10 result from 24 starts in her rookie season but in 2019 she rose to prominence in a way few could have expected.

At just 22 years of age Green defied the odds to go wire-to-wire to win her first major at the 2019 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, just the third Australian player to win a women’s major.

Providing an exclamation point on her arrival was a second LPGA Tour title at the Cambia Portland Classic and being named the winner of the Greg Norman Medal at the end of the year.

Bob Shearer
Career wins: 27
PGA TOUR wins: 1
European Tour wins: 2
Australasian Tour wins: 18
Australian Open: Won (1982)
Australian PGA: Won (1983)

Hannah Green
Career wins: 7
LPGA Tour wins: 2
ALPG Tour wins: 2
Women’s Australian Open: 3rd (2018)
Oates Vic Open: T3 (2018)


One had his best years on the golf course cruelly cut short; the other seems to get better with age.

Jack Newton and Rod Pampling encapsulate so much of what makes Australian golf so great which makes their match-up in our search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer so compelling.

Newton was a talented teen with the confidence to take on all comers while Pampling’s roots were in the grass of Caboolture Golf Club near the Sunshine Coast as an apprentice greenkeeper before embarking on a PGA of Australia Traineeship.

The son of accomplished golfers, Newton showed promise in both rugby league and cricket before racking up numerous schoolboy golf titles.

He turned professional in 1970 and the following year headed for Europe, by 1972 a European Tour winner after victory at the Dutch Open, a feat he followed up just six days later with his second victory at the Benson and Hedges Festival.

Three years later Newton finished tied at the top with Tom Watson after 72 holes of The Open Championship at Carnoustie and would fall just one shot shy in the next day’s 18-hole playoff.

A winner on the PGA TOUR in 1978, Newton got hot in the summer of 1979, winning the NSW Open and Australian Open in quick succession, victories that propelled him to the top of the Australasian Tour Order of Merit by season’s end.

The proud Novocastrian carried that form into 1980 where he was second to Seve Ballesteros at The Masters, tied for 32nd at the US Open, tied for 10th at The Open Championship and top-20 at the US PGA Championship.

Early in 1983 Newton lost the Western Australian Open to Terry Gale in a playoff and in July his playing career tragically came to an end when he walked into an airplane propeller and lost his right arm and eye, transferring his renowned tenaciousness into influencing Australian golf in innumerable ways over the past 35 years.

Pampling was a teenager in the midst of a love-hate relationship with golf at the time of Newton’s accident but was soon lured to pursue playing the game professionally.

As he trainee at Bribie Island Golf Club he pocketed cash playing against other pros and then six months shy of his 30th birthday claimed his first professional title, the 1999 Canon Challenge at Terrey Hills where he finished three strokes clear of runner-up Geoff Ogilvy.

In July that year Pampling came to prominence when he led The Open Championship after the opening round at Carnoustie Golf Links played in brutally difficult conditions. The next day he would suffer the ignominy of shooting 86 and missing the cut.

Throughout his career Pampling has shown an ability to go super-low on his day, racking up 31 points in the modified Stableford format to win his first PGA TOUR title at the 2004 The International and shooting 60 in the opening round of the 2016 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.

Pampling only gained entry to that tournament in Las Vegas due to a clerical error but capitalised the best way possible, sinking a birdie putt from 32 feet at the final hole to beat Brooks Koepka by two strokes and guarantee PGA TOUR status right up until his 50th birthday last September.

Pampling’s biggest victory on home soil was his playoff triumph at the 2008 Australian Masters while a course record final round of 61 at The Australian propelled the Queenslander into a tie for fourth at the 2015 Australian Open.

Jack Newton
Career wins: 13
PGA TOUR wins: 1
European Tour wins: 8
Australasian Tour wins: 3
Australian Open: Won (1979)

Rod Pampling
Career wins: 7
PGA TOUR wins: 3
Australasian Tour wins: 1
Australian Open: 2nd (2014)
Australian PGA: 2nd (2003)


Vastly different personalities, equally exceptional ability with golf club in hand; Brett Ogle is pitted against Minjee Lee in our continuing search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer.

There is an enigmatic nature to both Brett Ogle and Minjee Lee yet in a vastly different manner.

The gregarious joker whose emotions could also swing wildly the other way, Ogle skipped out on the PGA TOUR at the height of his powers in search of his biological parents, ultimately discovering that he had two sisters he never knew existed.

This chapter of Ogle’s life represents a microcosm of a career of highs and lows, a natural sporting talent raised in Goulburn in south-west New South Wales who would flirt with the game’s upper echelons and find his place as a man of the people.

A state champion table tennis player at school, Ogle turned his attention to golf and went from a 32-handicap to 1 in the space of two years. Junior accolades were soon forthcoming followed by the decision to turn professional in December 1985 at 21 years of age.

He shot 5-under 67 in the final round to win the 1988 Tasmanian Open and would register victories on the European Tour and PGA TOUR over the next five years, his greatest triumph coming at the 1993 Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

Yet to many Aussie golf fans he would become synonymous for his role as host of The Golf Show on Fox Sports and as the face of Drummond Golf, his outgoing nature and broad smile endearing him to golf fans across the globe.

Due to turn 24 this month, Minjee Lee’s rapid ascension in world golf is yet to reach its peak but she has already compiled a resume that elevates her among the best this country has produced. And for now – with younger brother Min Woo nipping at her heels – the best golfer in her family.

Winner of the 2012 US Junior Girls title, Lee claimed consecutive Australian Women’s Amateur crowns in 2013 and 2014 and when she won the 2014 Oates Victorian Open became the No.1 ranked amateur in the world.

Shy by nature but possessing a million-dollar smile, Lee turned professional after joining with Su Oh and Shelly Shin to win the Espirito Santo Trophy in September 2014 and the next year had earned her maiden LPGA Tour title at the Kingsmill Championship.

She has won four more times on the female game’s pre-eminent tour and risen to a high of No.2 in the world, a breakthrough major championship and that No.1 ranking the next big targets as her career progresses.

In today’s other match two of the game’s unsung heroes in this country go head-to-head.

The reigning Legends Tour Player of the Year, Mike Harwood has won 34 times throughout the world during his career yet his perhaps best remembered for the time he ran second to Ian Baker-Finch at the 1991 Open Championship.

A five-time winner on the European Tour, Harwood shot 64 in the final round of the 1986 Australian PGA Championship to edge Greg Norman by two strokes and has won 20 times on the Australian seniors tour over the past decade.

Although he doesn’t carry the profile of some of the game’s modern stars, Greg Chalmers boasts a record that rivals any.

Winner of the 1993 Australian Amateur and 1994 French Amateur, Chalmers made an instant impression on the Australasian Tour after joining the pro ranks in 1995.

He won the Australian Players Championship in 1997 and the Australian Open the following year, a feat he repeated 13 years later with a one-stroke win over John Senden at The Australian.

Two weeks after that win Chalmers added the 2011 Australian PGA Championship and would win it for a second time in a marathon playoff against Wade Ormsby and Adam Scott at Royal Pines in 2014, becoming just the fifth player to win both the Open and PGA titles twice in the past 50 years.

A two-time winner on the Nationwide Tour, Chalmers first joined the PGA TOUR in 1999 but had to wait 18 years and 386 events to earn his first victory at the 2016 Barracuda Championship.

Brett Ogle
Career wins: 15
PGA TOUR wins: 2
Australasian Tour wins: 5
Australian Open: 2nd (1994)
Australian PGA: Won (1990)

Minjee Lee
Career wins: 7
LPGA Tour wins: 5
ALPG Tour wins: 2
Women’s Australian Open: T3 (2017)
Australian Ladies Masters: 2nd (2014)

Mike Harwood
Career wins: 34
European Tour wins: 5
Australasian Tour wins: 2
Australian Open: T7 (1989)
Australian PGA: Won (1986)

Greg Chalmers
Career wins: 11
PGA TOUR wins: 1
Australasian Tour wins: 5
Australian Open: Won (1998, 2011)
Australian PGA: Won (2011, 2014)


Unfortunately for Aaron Baddeley, he has drawn the one man Rodger Davis says you don’t want to face in match play as our search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer continues.

Not even Wikipedia can keep up with the vast expanse of golf victories enjoyed by Billy Dunk throughout his decorated playing career.

Such was the frequency of his play and the often low nature of his scoring that the modern substitute to the Encyclopedia Britannica simply states that Dunk won on more than 100 occasions, including the Australian PGA Championship five times between 1962 and 1976.

He was a precocious character and a ferocious competitor and not the man you wanted to face in a man-to-man duel according to former sparring partner and legend of Australian golf himself, Rodger Davis.

“’Dunky’ would be the one I’d find hardest to play against,” Davis said when asked which of the 64 finalists in our search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer he’d least like to face in match play.

“He was an aggressive player and a very, very good iron player.

“He had a helluva record and when he was on fire he invariably broke a course record.

“He was a little bit like Bernhard Langer in that he had the ability to hit it flag-high and he was a good putter.

“If I mis-hit a shot into a green it was half a club short and to the right and all of a sudden I had a 30-footer. But if you had the ability to hit it flag-high the longest putt you’re going to have is 10-15 feet.

“That’s why they used to make so many birdies.”

The son of a greenkeeper, Dunk’s aversion to travel constrained his golf talents largely to Australian shores where he regularly made a mockery of the par set by any course that dared stand in his path.

It is estimated he broke more than 80 course records in his time, his 10-under par 60 in the NBN 3 tournament at Merewether Golf Club contributing to a scoring average in 1970 of 70.13 from 62 rounds, best in the world ahead of Jack Nicklaus (70.66), Gene Littler (70.79) and Lee Trevino (70.82).

Winner of the 1960 NSW PGA, Dunk dusted Eric Cremin 8&7 to win the first of his five PGA titles in 1962, second only to Kel Nagle (six) for most victories by any player.

While Dunk never enjoyed victory in his national open – he was tied for third at the 1975 Australian Open won by Jack Nicklaus – Aaron Baddeley burst into Australian golf’s consciousness by claiming the Stonehaven Cup twice before his 20th birthday.

Born in the United States, Baddeley followed in the footsteps of the likes of Robert Allenby, Stuart Appleby and Geoff Ogilvy as a product of the Victorian Institute of Sport, the talented teen honing his craft under the tutelage of Dale Lynch.

He was an 18-year-old amateur when he finished two shots clear of Greg Norman and Nick O’Hern at Royal Sydney Golf Club in 1999 and returned as defending champion at Kingston Heath the following year to register his first win as a professional.

In the process he became just the ninth player to win the Australian Open in successive years, putting his name up in lights alongside legends such as Norman, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Norman von Nida and Jim Ferrier.

Baddeley’s victory at the 2001 Greg Norman Holden International further entrenched his status as one of the rising stars in world golf and having been ranked as high as No.16 in the world has won four PGA TOUR titles and was the 54-hole leader at the 2007 US Open at Oakmont.

In the second match to be decided today John Senden faces off against the man whom the trophy for the Australian PGA Championship is named after, Joe Kirkwood Snr.

Regarded as one of the game’s best ball-strikers over the past 25 years, Senden’s putter has often been the cause of any malaise, his propensity to hit a high number of greens in regulation often contributing to unflattering putting stats.

Senden’s first victory as a professional came at the 1995 Indonesian PGA, he won twice on the European Challenge Tour but his most significant year came in 2006 when he not only broke through for his maiden PGA TOUR title but also claimed the Australian Open at Royal Sydney, closing out a round of 7-under 65 with three straight birdies to win by a shot.

Eighty-six years earlier Joe Kirkwood won the first Australian Open conducted post-WWI and would become a seminal figure in the advancement of professional golf in Australia.

Following his 1920 Australian Open triumph Kirkwood took his talents to the world, conducting exhibition matches to make ends meet and played an estimated 5,891 courses across the globe, putting the Australian PGA on the map.

Aaron Baddeley
Career wins: 8
PGA TOUR wins: 4
Australasian Tour wins: 4
Australian Open: Won (1999, 2000)
Australian PGA: T4 (2011)

Bill Dunk
Career wins: More than 100
Australasian Tour wins: 37
Australian Open: T3 (1975)
Australian PGA: Won (1962, 1966, 1971, 1974, 1976)

Joe Kirkwood Snr
Career wins: 17
PGA TOUR wins: 13
Australasian Tour wins: 3
Australian Open: Won (1920)

John Senden
Career wins: 6
PGA TOUR wins: 2
Australasian Tour wins: 1
Australian Open: Won (2006)
Australian PGA: T2 (2009)


A diminutive giant of Australian golf and an Asian pioneer go head-to-head as Norman von Nida and Brian Jones face off in our latest match in search of Australia’s Greatest Golfer.

Such are the stories that legends share of ‘The Von’ that it is easy to remember the character ahead of the accomplishments of Norman von Nida.

Whether giving bunker lessons to the likes of Gary Player and Peter Thomson or – with failing eyesight – instructing Nick Faldo to make a swing adjustment simply by listening to the sound the ball made on the clubface, von Nida’s impact on the game in this country was lengthy and varied.

From his days as a teenager caddying in Brisbane, von Nida regularly spent time amongst golf royalty.

He caddied for Walter Hagen at just 14 years of age and at 22 beat the newly crowned British Open champion Gene Sarazen after challenging him to a 50-pound winner-takes-all match.

Although small in stature, von Nida’s powerful arms propelled him to some 100 wins around the world and he was a trailblazer for Australians playing in Europe, encouraging golfers such as Thomson to also make the long journey to opportunity.

Although he had success prior to World War II – he was twice runner-up to Jim Ferrier in the 1938 and 1939 Australian Open – it would be when the war ended that von Nida became a dominant force in both Australia and Europe.

In 1947 he won seven times in Europe and on home soil was close to unbeatable in our major events.

Between 1946 and 1951 he won the Australian PGA Championship on four occasions – disposing of first Eric Cremin and then Ossie Pickworth 6&5 in the final in successive years in ’50 and ’51 and in a seven-year span between 1949 and 1955 either won or was runner-up at the Australian Open every year, Pickworth, Thomson and Bobby Locke the only men to deny him in that time.

A generation of Australian players – and even the great Jack Nicklaus – turned to ‘The Von’ for advice but above all else he showed that Australian golfers should never be afraid to pit their talents against the best the world could throw at them.

Like von Nida, Jones helped to establish a new frontier for Aussie golfers.

Born in Sydney, Jones won the Western Australian Open the year before turning professional in 1971 and would soon after forge a successful career throughout Asia.

He won the 1972 Indian Open – a title he would claim again five years later – but it was in Japan where he would find his greatest success.

The first of 11 individual titles in Japan came at the 1977 KBC Augusta tournament and he would amass close to Y470 million in career earnings in Japan alone, his final triumph in the Land of the Rising Sun recorded at the 1993 Sapporo Tokyu Open.

A winner of three PGA Tour of Australasia events, Jones’ came closest to claiming one of our most prestigious titles at the 1980 Australian Open.

The third-round leader, Jones led Greg Norman by a stroke with six holes to play at The Lakes Golf Club but bogeys at 15, 16 and 17 opened the door for Norman to go on and record a one-stroke win.

In this afternoon’s match, five-time US PGA Tour winner Marc Leishman goes up against famed Tiger tamer Nick O’Hern.

Yet to record a major victory on home soil, Leishman has established himself as one of our most consistent performers on the world stage and a regular member of the International team at the Presidents Cup.

The only player to defeat Tiger Woods twice in match play competition, O’Hern’s best year was in 2006 when he was top-10 at the US Open and won the Australian PGA Championship at Coolum by holing a bunker shot from the back of the 18th green at the second playoff hole.

Norman von Nida
Career wins: 48
European Tour wins: 14
Australasian Tour wins: 32
Australian Open: Won (1950, 1952, 1953)
Australian PGA: Won (1946, 1948, 1950, 1951)

Brian Jones
Career wins: 21
Japan Tour wins: 11
Australasian Tour wins: 3
Australian Open: 2nd (1980)

Marc Leishman
Career wins: 12
PGA TOUR wins: 5
Australasian Tour wins: 4 (Von Nida Tour)
Australian Open: T10 (2019)
Australian PGA: 2nd (2018)

Nick O’Hern
Career wins: 5
Australasian Tour wins: 2
Australian Open: 2nd (1999, 2005, 2007)
Australian PGA: Won (2006)


They took rather different approaches but Peter Senior and Michael Clayton both left an indelible impression on Australian Golf; they meet in our latest showdown to find Australia’s Greatest Golfer.

Chalk and cheese have got nothing on Peter Senior and Michael Clayton.

Two of Australian golf’s most prominent figures of the 1980s and 1990s, it is safe to say that the pair approached professional golf in vastly different ways.

Senior was the methodical grinder, devoid of emotion as he regularly put away longer hitters with bigger profiles and the egos to match.

Clayton took a more artistic approach to his golf, an uber-talented junior who came into the pro ranks unafraid to either celebrate his triumphs or express his displeasure.

Where Senior’s playing career is now in its sixth decade, Clayton resembled a comet in the sky, a burst of brilliance before pursuing careers in both journalism and course design with great success.

Perhaps it was Senior’s combination of short stature and unassuming ways that endeared him so greatly to the Australian public.

Turning professional in 1978, the first of Senior’s 21 wins on the PGA Tour of Australasia came at the 1979 Dunhill Australian Open; his most recent a defeat of rising American amateur Bryson DeChambeau, John Senden and Andrew Evans at the 2015 Uniqlo Masters.

For those counting at home, that’s 36 years of tournament success.

A three-time winner in 1987, Senior completed a clean-sweep of Australia’s three biggest events in 1989 when he put the broomstick putter in play for the first time, an instrument he would wield to great effect and which would become synonymous with Senior’s play.

He won the Australian PGA Championship, Australian Open and Johnnie Walker Classic in quick succession with a cumulative winning margin for the Open and Johnnie Walker Classic played in consecutive weeks an astonishing 12 strokes.

That performance elevated Senior inside the top 30 in the world and earned his one and only invitation from Augusta National Golf Club to play The Masters the following year.

Senior’s international success came predominantly in Europe where he had four victories and in Japan where he triumphed on three occasions.

Seventh on the European Tour Order of Merit in 1987, Senior did earn a PGA TOUR card for the 1986 season but after struggling to adjust to the American style of play returned to Europe midway through the year.

In the early 1990s Senior was a regular fixture near the top of the leaderboard at The Open Championship, his best finish a tie for fourth in 1993 as he finished inside the top-20 each year from 1991-1994.

Now one of the most respected voices in Australian golf and a prominent figure in architecture around the world, Michael Clayton emerged in the late 1970s as a Melbourne amateur of great promise.

Winner of the 1977 and 1981 Victorian Amateur, Clayton won the 1978 Australian Amateur 1 up over Tony Gresham at Royal Queensland, a course he would go on to redesign some 30 years later.

When he turned professional in 1981 Clayton immediately joined the PGA Tour of Australasia and won for the first time a year later at a star-studded Victorian Open at Metropolitan.

Clayton played for more than a decade on the European Tour with his sole win coming at the 1984 Timex Open, a win that pushed him to a career-high finish of 18th on the moneylist.

Six years later Clayton almost added a second win to his resume but was edged out by fellow Aussie Rodger Davis at the seventh playoff hole of the Bob Hope British Classic.

Like Senior, when Clayton’s confidence was up he could rival anyone in Australian golf, claiming both the 1994 Heineken Classic and Coolum Classic and finishing top three in the opening two events of 1995 to rise to a career-high of 91 in the world.

Peter Senior
Career wins: 34
European Tour wins: 4
Australasian Tour wins: 21
Australian Open: Won (1989, 2012)
Australian PGA: Won (1989, 2003, 2010)

Michael Clayton
Career wins: 8
European Tour wins: 1
Australasian Tour wins: 6
Australian Open: T2 (1993)
Australian PGA: T6 (1991)


They won the first two Australian Opens of the 1960s and were giants of Australian golf for a decade; Bruce Devlin faces Frank Phillips in the latest match in the search for Australia’s Greatest Golfer.

Given the limitations – and expense – of international travel in the 1960s, the vast number of Australian golfers had to wait until the world’s best arrived on our shores to get a complete measure of their game.

When they did, Bruce Devlin and Frank Phillips had no hesitation in showing them just how strong Australian golf was.

Born in Adelaide, Devlin delivered one of the most spectacular entries to professional golf the game has ever seen in this country.

Victorious at the 1959 Australian Amateur and a member of the 1958 Australian team that won the Eisenhower Trophy, Devlin claimed the 1960 Australian Open ahead of fellow amateur Ted Ball at Lake Karrinyup, Devlin and Ball members of the Australian team that finished second behind a Jack Nicklaus-led US team at the 1960 Eisenhower trophy.

Soon enough the lure of America proved too great and Devlin would win eight times and miss out in playoffs on three separate occasions.

His first win came by four strokes at the 1964 St Petersburg Open Invitational and he won two times in a season three times in 1966, 1970 and 1972.

Ten years after his shock Australian Open win, Devlin teamed up with great mate David Graham to spank the rest of the world at the 1970 World Cup in Argentina, finishing 10 shots clear of local favourites Roberto De Vicenzo and Vicente Fernández and 19 ahead of third-placed South Africa.

In addition to his Australian Open win Devlin was winner of the Australian PGA Championship in consecutive years in 1969-70 and in 1963 alone triumphed at the New Zealand Open, Queensland Open, Victorian Open, Adelaide Advertiser Tournament (in a tie with Phillips), Wills Classic and Caltex Tournament.

From 1964 until 1976 Devlin finished in the top 10 at The Masters five times and was top 20 on five further occasions and in 1965 – where he was tied for 15th at Augusta – Devlin finished no worse than a tie for eighth in the other three majors.

Tied for 18th in 1962 and 12th in 1963 at The Open Championship, Phillips was not a regular fixture in golf’s grandest events, preferring to dominate the Australasian and Asian circuits.

Hailing from the Southern Highlands south of Sydney, Phillips broke through to win the 1955 New Zealand PGA Championship a year after joining the professional ranks but came to prominence with his victory at the 1957 Australian Open at Kingston Heath.

A year earlier Phillips had spent three months travelling Europe with Norman von Nida and it helped to solidify the lanky Phillips’ play, holding off South African legend Gary Player both in 1957 and in his second Australian Open victory in 1961 at Victoria Golf Club.

Winner of the New South Wales Open four times, Phillips accrued an impressive list of national open titles throughout Asia, twice winning the Singapore Open and Hong Kong Open crowns as well as victories in the Philippines and Malaysia.

Bruce Devlin
Career wins: 31
PGA TOUR wins: 8
Australasian Tour wins: 19
Australian Open: Won (1960)
Australian PGA: Won (1969, 1970)

Frank Phillips
Career wins: 32
Australasian Tour wins: 23
Asian Golf Circuit wins: 7
Australian Open: Won (1957, 1961)
Australian PGA: 2nd (1961, 1965)


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