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Brett Rankin couldn’t call on his childhood memories of playing the golf course but used his smarts to navigate his way to a two-stroke win at the Brisbane River Pro-Am.
The first adidas PGA Pro-Am Series event to be played at Brisbane River Golf Club since 1996, 44 players teed it up at the par-66 layout but found its short, twisting holes a unique challenge.
The best score in the morning wave was 3-over par, giving Rankin cause for consideration before teeing off in the afternoon.
A Brisbane native, Rankin recalled playing the course with his primary school best mate, Wayne, and their two fathers at 11 years of age but came with a fresh approach after seeing the morning struggles on the leaderboard.
“I don’t remember the course at all. I remember the clubhouse and that’s about it,” said Rankin.
“It’s a golf course that you have to be very smart with. Being very strategic with your game-plan.
“I saw the scores this morning and saw that everyone was struggling a little bit. Thought maybe everyone was trying to be too aggressive.
“I played very smart today, hit a lot of irons off tees and just hit it where I could see it.
“I saw no one was really doing much so I thought if I kept it simple and made a few putts it might be enough to win the day.”
Rankin went bogey-free in his round of 4-under 62, enough for a two-stroke winner from Windaroo Lakes joint winner Aiden Didone (64) with Will Bruyeres (65) the only other player under par.
A former winner of the NT PGA Championship, Rankin will play the Power’s Lager Kooralbyn Valley Pro-Am on Sunday and the Queensland Foursomes Championship on Monday before heading to Palmerston Golf and Country Club.
“There’s not going to be a lot of rest before NT PGA but I’ll take a few weeks off after,” said Rankin, who returned to the top of the adidas PGA Pro-Am Series Order of Merit with his Brisbane River victory.
“The body’s pretty sore at the moment so I just want to try and get through NT, play good, rest up and then start looking after the body a bit.”
For the second event in succession there was also a hole-in-one at Brisbane River, Barrie Manning using 9-iron at the 130-metre par-3 16th, the ball rolling down off the bank on the left of the green, hitting the flag at decent pace and dropping in.
