Playing well on the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia has opened up a world of opportunities for Victorian Matthew Griffin who this week makes his Major debut.

Winning the New Zealand Open followed by the Order of Merit has ensured Griffin a season filled with tournaments on golf’s biggest stages.

He competed in the WGC – Mexico Championship the week before his title defence at the New Zealand Open. While his results in Mexico weren’t what he hoped he finished tied 6^th in Queenstown.

He then went on to make the cut at The Memorial on the PGA TOUR before an injury on the range on Saturday de-railed his weekend.

“Winning the Order of Merit is an incredible opportunity. As soon as I won the New Zealand Open last year it was a goal to win the Order of Merit,” said Griffin.

“To have the opportunity to play your way into these big events by playing in Australia is a good carrot and shows how important the PGA Tour of Australasia is.

“I have really enjoyed the events I have had so far this year and I hope to make the most of the ones that I still have left.

“Golf is a funny game, whilst in tennis players outside of the top-200 in the world rankings have probably no chance of winning a grand slam event, in golf players well outside can come up and play well to give themselves a chance to win.”

This week, Griffin will make his Major debut at the 146th Open Championship; another opportunity created by topping the money list.

Heading to Royal Birkdale for the first time, Griffin looked to the last Australian to have won The Open on the layout, Ian Baker-Finch, for some advice.

“I have seen Ian Baker-Finch a couple of times throughout the year and chatted to him about how memorable Birkdale is for him,”added Griffin.

“Ian gave me a few little tips; he rates it as probably the fairest of the links style courses. He said you need to be smart and keep yourself out the long rough and the bunkers.

“Birkdale is a positional type golf course which is what I play my best golf on. You can’t overpower it, which means everyone in the field is a chance which will suit me a lot more than a U.S. Open course would have.”

Buoyed by the history of Australia’s success at Birkdale along with knowledge gained from Baker-Finch and his experiences on the PGA TOUR and WGC tournament, Griffin is confident and excited for the week.

“Peter Thomson won twice at Birkdale, Ian won as well and Greg Norman almost did. It’s hard to say what it is but perhaps there are a few things there that suit the Aussie golfers and hopefully one of our guys can add their name to the trophy,” added Griffin.

“I am just trying to prepare as best I can then let the result take care of itself. In Mexico earlier in the year I think I put too much pressure on myself to play well. Then when I played The Memorial, I just played and produced a better result.

“The good thing with Memorial was that it showed, if I am playing well then I can be there which gives me good confidence for The Open.”

Griffin tees off at 12.09pm local time, 9.09pm AEST, playing alongside Canadian Austin Connelly, who was a finalist at the ISPS HANDA World Super 6 Perth and Englishman Matthew Southgate.