With a sequence of outstanding results in the recently completed Tour season, Croker locked up the Future Tour Order of Merit by a wide margin to secure a Tour card which ensures he can bypass the upcoming Qualifying School at Moonah Links.

A member of Australia’s team at last year’s Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, Croker made the cut in all nine Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia tournaments he contested, highlighted by a second-place finish at The Heritage Classic in January.

And he finished outside the top 15 in only two events, gaining great experience to take into the next stage of his career and impressing those who saw his game first-hand and on the Fox Sports telecasts.

PGA.org.au caught up with the 21-year-old after his final Tour event as an amateur, The National Tournament, to get some key takeaways on his fantastic season.

What reflections do you have on the 2023/24 season overall?

I enjoyed it this year. It was fun. I played plenty of different tournament and got the chance to go to plenty of different places. It was a good year.

What did you learn most about what life as a touring professional would be like?

Something that sticks out the most is the uncontrollables. There’s so many things you can get mad at or angry at, your feelings towards them, that don’t really matter. You can deal with them after if you have to.

It’s no use getting annoyed about something that doesn’t really matter and then bringing that out on the golf course. You just have to go out and play the 18 holes.

I played a couple of events and realised that ‘my game is kind of there so if I just let it happen it will turn into a good result’.  I showed myself that I could play out here and some good golf, not perfect golf, can get it done some times.

What was your favourite event of the season?

I really liked the two events in WA, the Open and the PGA. Joondalup was a really cool course.

Heritage was obviously the best finish, the most I was under-par, and it was good to get used to the TV cameras following me and having to manage my time with some extra requirements. That was a learning curve that week.

Who sticks in your mind as someone who was really enjoyable to play with?

Playing with Griffo (Matt Griffin) in the final round at The Heritage was pretty big. Just being able to have a good chat with him while he’s trying to win a golf tournament. You just can’t chat like two mates walking down the fairway because you still have a job to do, but I really enjoyed his company. He’s a good bloke who knows a lot and is open to helping you. He has so much knowledge.

Also what comes to mind is the Sandbelt Invitational. I played with Geoff Ogilvy the first day and then Nico Colsaerts the next day. To with able to play with them on back-to-back days, and play some pretty good golf in front of them, was really good. I thought ‘wow, I’m playing with a US Open winner and the vice-captain of Europe’s Ryder Cup team’. That was pretty cool.

What’s your plans for the next few months?

We’re going to work pretty hard on my game in the next couple of months and hopefully get some progression then there’s some amateur events in the US that I hope to tap into and play. It’s going to be tough in terms of knowing a schedule.

We’ll try to play as many events as we can over there in their summer and then come home. I think by that time, it might be the start of the new season here so then I might be looking to use the Future card and play a season as a professional on this Tour.