World Number 21 Marc Leishman has shown again that near enough is good enough after he recovered from a scratchy start to post 4-under 68 in the opening round of the Australian PGA Championship at RACV Royal Pines Resort.

Eager to begin in similar fashion to 12 months ago when he was tied for the lead through 36 holes, Leishman three-putted his opening hole of the tournament – the par-4 10th – to be on the back foot early and made the turn at even par.

Back-to-back birdies at the third and fifth holes swung momentum the right way with further birdies at seven and nine bringing him to within two shots of early leaders Jake McLeod and Matt Jager.

“It could have been worse,” Leishman conceded. “I could have easily shot even par.

“I did a similar thing in Malaysia (where he won the CIMB Classic). Didn’t have my best stuff in the first round and then when you do hit some good shots you can attack a little bit more.

“I’m not saying I played badly, it just wasn’t an immaculate round, I would say. It was a very good round for the way that I hit it.

“That’s been the goal of mine for the last few years, when I don’t have my best golf, my best stuff, to still shoot under par. Not put myself out of the tournament with one round.

“I’m getting better at it. I can still obviously improve with it, but just as my good rounds are really good,  I have to make the bad rounds not quite as bad.

“Hopefully I can play a little better tomorrow and do the same as I did last year and hopefully be right around the lead after two rounds.”

Leishman’s opening tee shot found the right rough but a solid approach shot gave him a look at birdie, a putt that he ran eight feet past the hole before missing the one coming back.

Greens that were noticeably quicker than they were for the afternoon pro-am on Wednesday necessitated a quick adjustment, Leishman finding his range with a birdie at the par-5 12th.

“I hit a good putt on 11 that didn’t go in, and then made a putt on 12 for birdie from about 10 feet,” Leishman explained.

“I hit a lot of good putts today actually. They were quicker today than they were yesterday, definitely.

“That makes them easier to putt on, but they’re still quite grainy. But you expect that coming to Queensland, especially when the weather’s been the way it has, too.

“It’s just hard putting on them. If I had to predict a score, I wouldn’t think it would be as low as it was last year just because it’s going to be harder to make putts.

“If you don’t match up the line and speed absolutely perfectly on these greens when there’s grain, when grain’s a factor, you can they look like they’re going in. And if they’re a little bit too hard, they won’t break, and obviously a little soft, they’ll break across the hole. I hit a few putts like that.

“I was happy with how many putts I made today.”

For Australia’s band of PGA professionals, this one’s personal.

Ever since the passing of Jarrod Lyle in August this year, there has been an outpouring of grief and support throughout the worldwide golfing community.

The game’s biggest names shared their favourite stories of one of the game’s most favourite characters and wore with pride the Leuk the Duck merchandise for which Lyle became synonymous during his battle with leukaemia.

But it is the first round of the Australian PGA Championship at RACV Royal Pines Resort where Lyle’s colleagues and countrymen will stand together as one in remembrance of a great golfer and an even better bloke.

The fairways of Royal Pines will be transformed into a sea of yellow as both players, caddies and spectators pay their respects with a simple clothing choice and for those who shared the locker room with Lyle it will stand as a day unlike any other.

Just this week Robert Allenby’s annual charity day in Melbourne passed $40 million in funds raised for Challenge that supported Lyle and thousands of other children battling cancer while Greg Chalmers and Marc Leishman both started charitable foundations after members of their immediate family were affected.

And that’s why, according to Chalmers, Thursday shapes as such an important occasion.

“It has a personal feel and that’s rare with charities,” Chalmers said.

“I run my own charity day for my charity at home and when it matters to you that’s what makes it real and important. That’s what tomorrow is for all of us as pros and those of us who knew Jarrod well.

“Even if you didn’t know him you only had to see how he interacted with people to understand what a quality human being he was.

“Tomorrow’s our chance to give back a little bit to all the other families that are struggling with this horrendous disease.”

Titleist players will wear commemorative yellow hats and shirts for the Australian PGA Championship’s opening round, merchandise that will be available for sale to the general public through the Challenge website.

Leuk the Duck merchandise will also be available for sale at the Royal Pines tournament village but more than anything Chalmers wants fans to wear yellow and join the show of solidarity by those within Australian golf.

“Titleist have gone to another level in helping to raise funds because Jarrod was a Titleist player and then every one of the players will be wearing yellow tomorrow. We want the fans to come out on Thursday and wear yellow as well,” said Chalmers, the 2011 and 2014 Australian PGA champion.

“Nobody ever met Jarrod and ever had a bad experience. I can’t say enough about him.

“One of my favourite things to say about him was that he was a better human being than he was a player… and he was a fabulous player.

“There’s a rare breed that can be wonderful golfers but also wonderful people and he was that.

“He is missed. I gave his wife a hug at the Australian Open a couple of weeks ago and I feel so sad for them that they have lost such a big part of their family.

“This is our opportunity to recognise how important this is and give back a little bit.”

It was the moment that the headline act very nearly exited stage left.

Halfway down the third hole of his Australian PGA Championship debut at RACV Royal Pines Resort, Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston turned to his girlfriend Jodie in the gallery and said, “I’ve got to get out of here.”

A tee shot that barely crossed the hazard line before sailing deep into the lake abutting the 10th hole – his first of the day – set the early tone and when his tee shot at the par-5 12th also went to a watery grave the fan favourite looked like quitting before 7am.

After hitting his third shot he walked across the fairway to seek out his girlfriend with either a way out or a reason to keep going.

After recovering from his disastrous start where he was 3-over through three holes to shoot 5-under over his following 15 holes to end the round 2-under par, Johnston reflected on the moment where he nearly walked and how Jodie turned hm around.

Where ‘Beef’ thought it was a kind word that set him straight Jodie was adamant it was more of a kick up the arse – “I’ve obviously been a lot harsher if he thought that was a kind word” – but it put the popular Englishman back into tournament contention.

“Just a nice word, I think,” Johnston said of their exchange in the middle of the 12th fairway.

“Just to keep going, to remember that what I’m working on is new.

“I nearly walked off the course after 12, to be honest. It’s been a frustrating year, and yeah, it’s really annoyed me in the past.

“Really got to me out on 10 and on 12 after hitting two tee shots because I have been working so hard to try to get it right.

“But I spoke to my girlfriend and she just said keep going, so I did and I just tried to stay calm.

“Luckily I turned it around.”

Despite the tee shot at 13 requiring a water carry of 200-plus metres Johnston composed himself quickly enough to launch a drive straight down the middle but said it was his approach that set up birdie at the par-5 15th that sparked him to life.

Working on swing changes with new coach Hugh Marr, Johnston hit good approach shots at both 13 and 14 without converting but said it was a slight adjustment before hitting his second to 15 that saw him ultimately yield four birdies in his final seven holes.

“I had to hit sort of a cut around a tree and that’s what I’ve been trying to do, I’ve been trying to start it left and hit a little fade,” Johnston said of his second shot at the 15th.

“I realised in my swing I needed to get the face a lot better, a lot more open to my path. When I hit that and I saw it cut, it felt a lot better and I hit it nicer the rest of the day.

“The problem is I’ve had this destructive shot, so I play seven, eight holes right and then I hit one and I make 6, and then hit another one out of bounds or something like that and it’s just destructive.

“There I was able to play golf and put a score together for the rest of the holes because I didn’t hit any destructive golf shots.”

No golfer is immune from mid-round swing horrors and as he composed a polished 4-under round of 68, Marc Leishman paid Johnston great credit for being able to fight back the way he did.

“I actually saw his tee shot on 10 there,” said Leishman, who was playing in the group behind Johnston.

“It obviously wasn’t what he was after, but he’s come a long way and he’s not going to give up.

“I have been there and golf’s a funny game. You can think you’re playing great and then it can switch in the blink of an eye, and the other way as well like I guess he did today. Just got off to a bad start and then found something, and he was obviously 5-under from there on in, so that’s pretty impressive.

“When I get off to a start like that, the way I look at it is, well, that’s all my bad holes out of the way for the tournament, just play smart from now on in and hope you don’t do any more silly stuff.”

For a split second one of the game’s best ball-strikers was made to look like a mere mortal.

John Senden’s tee shot at the par-5 ninth during the opening round of the Australian PGA Championship went horribly wrong when his driver snapped mid-swing, his driver crashing into the turf several inches inside the ball that remained untouched on the tee.

As playing partner Geoff Ogilvy made the case that Senden had not deliberately swung at the ball, rules officials convened to determine whether the stroke would in fact count.

With his driver out of play, Senden was told that he could play the ball as it lay on the tee or take a free drop from the ‘obstruction’ which the veteran Queenslander did, hitting iron well wide of the fairway for his second shot, going on to make bogey.

Officials conducted a further review of the footage and waited for Senden to complete his round before determining that the ‘air swing’ ruling would stand and his score for the hole a bogey six.

Chief Referee of the European Tour John Paramor – who witnessed a similar incident involving Brian Waites at the Lancome Trophy more than 30 years ago – explained that the intention to swing at the ball could not be sufficiently argued and that it would subsequently be considered a stroke.

Two-under at the time, Senden finished the first round even par after making bogey at the par-4 18th but was philosophical about being penalized one stroke in such bizarre circumstances.

“There’s no exception, it’s just the rule,” Senden said following a lengthy deliberation in the scorer’s tent.

“Isn’t that how it works? You can’t argue against the one (shot penalty).

“Unfortunately, when your intent is to hit a shot and you don’t hit it, it’s one stroke. That’s the way it goes.

“The actual club broke in the handle coming down into the impact area.

“I had no chance of actually stopping the shot, so unfortunately that counts as actually one stroke.

“I’ve seen it happen before to other players, but first time it’s happened to me in a tournament.

“It was just the force of it coming down and then snapped right in front of my forefinger on the right hand. And when the club collapsed in this area, I come down and had no chance of stopping the shot.

“The whole thing actually spooked me a bit.”

Senden wasn’t the only player in the group to be affected with playing partner Harold Varner III explaining that it remained a topic of discussion for the following five holes and rattled both he and Geoff Ogilvy.

“It affected all of us. It was a momentum killer, it was kind of awkward and, to be honest with you, it sucked," said Varner, the 2016 champion at Royal Pines.

“It was so bad we were still talking about it on No.14.

“He handled it well. He’s a class act.”

One last time for the season for Tour Insider!

TI would like to congratulate Belgium on the World Cup win last week. As a passionate Aussie I wouldn’t have tipped them but the Belgium boys swing it well and deserved their win. Handling the weather on Friday going a long way to a great win.

Cam Smith – If he displays last week’s form he just wins. TI has admired his media work the last couple of week’s and thinks Aussie fans will grow to love this bloke the more of him they see and here.

John Senden – Has had a number of chances in the past more so at Coolum to meet Joe Kirkwood but has just come up short. The recent health battles of son Jacob has given him a new perspective and he seems very relaxed and could easily fire this week.

Jason Scrivener – One of Ti’s favourites but I haven’t seen him much this year. Played well in Hong Kong last week (on a course he loves) but should be able to carry that form through. Broke through for his first win last year and would not surprise to see him hoist another trophy.

Harold Varner III – Seems to love the course and was his usual jovial self when TI ran into the man earlier this week. He is a PGA Tour player and past winner so must be respected. TI needs to be honest and say he would prefer a local winner but Harry would be a popular winner again.

Cam Davis – Such a talent and fans should get out and watch this bloke hit a golf ball. A super ball striker and with the pressure off this week (not defending) he is a real chance to win again.

TI would like to wish all players well as they fight to win the Order of Merit, grab status for next year and win a big cheque to buy the Christmas gifts!

Time can quickly get away from you, with each year that passes and the question remains as to when Marc Leishman will solidify his place in Australian golf with a win in one of our major events, the pressure of time continues to build.

At this week’s Australian PGA Championship that begins on Thursday morning at the RACV Royal Pines Resort, Leishman is more elder statesman than precocious young talent.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that the now 35-year-old arrived on the US PGA Tour and claimed Rookie of the Year honours in 2009 yet he is now entering his 11th season with four wins to his name, his most recent coming at the CIMB Classic in Malaysia a few weeks ago.

Repeatedly this week he has recycled the sound bite that a win in a major Australian tournament is a missing piece of his resume and he has begun to look over his shoulder at the young brigade shaping up for a tilt of their own.

“That pressure definitely grows, for sure,” Leishman said of the opportunities that have passed him by.

“I don’t know if I feel pressure to win, but I’m definitely a lot more determined to do the right things and try and give myself the best chance to contend when I’m at home.

“The first few years that I came back when I was on tour, it was almost a bit of a holiday. Like a bit of a deep breath and all right, we’re done for the year, let’s enjoy this week, hopefully we play well.

“The last few years I’ve gone through the correct process that I do on tour. Really make sure I’m doing the right things because I don’t want to get another five years down the track and still be getting asked the same questions.

“I’m determined to do very well.  I feel like last year was a big step getting off to the start I did. Last year was a big step in the right direction in terms of doing the right things and hopefully I can improve on that this year.”

Since Leishman finished fourth behind World Cup teammate Cameron Smith at Royal Pines 12 months ago, Cameron Davis and Curtis Luck have played their way onto the PGA Tour and Lucas Herbert and Deyen Lawson earned European Tour cards as Dimi Papadatos narrowly missed out.

Anthony Quayle enjoyed a successful rookie season on the Japan Golf Tour, Jake McLeod broke through for a maiden professional title at the NSW Open and Jason Scrivener produced his best season in Europe.

Throw in the likes of Brett Coletta, Harrison Endycott, Brett Rankin, Zach Murray and amateur David Micheluzzi and there are a bunch of youngsters Leishman is eager to help usher in to golf’s highest level.

“I definitely feel like I’m one of the older guys now,” conceded Leishman.

“It’s been a few years since there’s been a batch of guys come on to the tour like that.

“Seeing those guys come through, it’s motivating for us as well to try and lead the way, I guess.

“If they’ve got any questions, it’s just nice to bounce them off someone that’s been there. This is my 11th year on tour now, and it doesn’t even have to be anything big. Just talking to someone about something helps, whether it’s about where to stay or a tactic on a certain hole, why you hit a certain club off this tee rather than another one, just little things like that.

“For those boys it’s just a matter of realising that they’re obviously great players to get to the tour, they don’t have to change anything to keep improving. They’ll do that naturally over time by learning.

“It’s a fun process. You’ll have good weeks and you’ll have bad weeks. One of the best bits of advice that I ever got was actually from Nathan Green.  He said, ‘You’ll make the 90 per cent of your money in 10 per cent of your weeks.’

“I always think about that when you’re having a bad week. As long as I keep doing the right things, the good weeks are going to come.

“Just on those weeks where you are near the top of the leaderboard, you need to really make sure to make hay on those weeks.”

Perhaps in terms of Leishman’s Aussie quest, this will be that week.

As Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston walks up to the par-3 16th green during the course of the Australian PGA Championship, expect to hear the DJ blasting a bit of American rapper Action Bronson; if the English extrovert makes an ace at any stage, brace yourself, anything could happen.

Johnston made an inspection of what will be the epicentre for golf fans attending the PGA Championship at RACV Royal Pines Resort this week and loved what he saw.

The Soniq Million Dollar Hole not only features the Volkswagen Marquee behind the green but for the first time now also boasts the Oakley Gold Coast Beach Club, a spot where a select group of fans will each day be invited to sit back in a deck chair and watch the action unfold.

Given the sponsor activity and response from fans in recent years, such initiatives are part of the PGA of Australia’s desire to create a fun tournament environment, and it’s something Johnston believes the players must also embrace.

Often criticised for generating a staid a stale tournament experience for fans, golf around the world is experimenting with different formats and new fan experiences which Johnston says must continue to grow golf’s fan base.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea, adds something different to the hole, different to the event,” Johnston said as he handed out beers and pies to the assembled media.

“I think crowds and people are going to like it as well. I’m always up for ideas like that. I think it’s a good thing.

“It’s engaging with the crowds doing different things like that. I hear there’s a DJ on this hole as well, which is going to be interesting.

“It gets more people involved and gives them a day out.

“If you want to go somewhere and you say, oh, what are we going to do on a Saturday with your friends, and you say, oh, there’s golf and we can sit on 16 and there’s a DJ, we’ll have some fun, they’re going to turn up.

“I think it advertises to a wider audience.”

Aussie young gun Lucas Herbert has played his way onto the rich European Tour for 2019 and like Johnston, is excited by the atmosphere that will be created on the 16th hole over the course of the four days.

“A few people have had different ideas of how to change I guess the image of the game or how to make golf more fun,” said Herbert.

“That looks like what the beach club’s going to be like and the party hole as it was last year.

“Sometimes I think as golfers we need to just relax, chill out a little bit and maybe not let that drunk guy in the background yelling out affect us too much.

“Those guys are all here enjoying it and in a lot of ways allowing us to play for the money and on the venues, on the tours that we do.

“I think it’s great. I’d love to see more of it.”

Paired with Aussies Cameron Smith and Curtis Luck for the opening two rounds, Johnston will begin his maiden Australian PGA Championship from the 10th tee at 6am on Thursday morning (AEST).

Dreading the alarm that will give him enough time to be on the range by 5am, Johnston is currently undergoing some swing adjustments with new coach Hugh Marr but expects the greatest challenge this week will be adjusting to the Bermuda-grass greens of the Royal Pines layout.

“There’s definitely birdies out there. It depends on the wind,” said Johnston, who played in blustery conditions during the morning pro-am groups on Wednesday.

“You can birdie par 5s, there’s a few wedges in.

“I think you’ve got to drive the ball well and the greens are quite grainy as well.

“I was interested in putting on them today. You get some real quick putts and some really slow putts.

“I think you’ve got to be on the ball with the speed.

“From Hong Kong last week to this week, I’ve just tweaked a couple adjustments (to my swing) and it has felt better.

“It felt better this morning in the pro-am, and I played a few holes on Monday as well which it felt better.

“If I can do that and I can get a good range session in the morning, get a good feeling and go with it.”

As a golfer, Lucas Herbert has aspirations to emulate the feats of Greg Norman and Tiger Woods; as a person, the 22-year-old from Bendigo wants to be just like Jarrod Lyle.

RACV Royal Pines Resort will become a sea of yellow in honour of Lyle for the opening day of the Australian PGA Championship on the Gold Coast on Thursday with Herbert to carry a specially-made yellow golf bag for the week.

At the completion of the tournament the bag will be auctioned off with money raised to go to Lyle’s wife Briony and their two daughters but that will not signal the end of his tribute to the much-loved Aussie golfer who passed away in August.

Fellow lads with liberal doses of cheek from Victorian country towns just 120 kilometres apart, there are personality traits that both Lyle and Herbert pair share.

While Lyle’s ever-present smile drew people in, Herbert’s sense of humour comes with smatterings of sarcasm, never afraid to argue his point through social media channels or on podcasts.

As Lyle was impossible not to like, Herbert’s bravado can’t help but be respected and as he sets his sights on world golf domination, he knows that keeping Lyle’s legacy in his mind will be a critical part of his development as a person.

“I would love to follow in his footsteps, but I think of Jarrod more as the sort of person that I would like to be,” Herbert said.

“He was always just that country guy no matter where he got to in the world and what tournaments he was playing in.

“No one had a bad word to say about him. He was always such a lovely guy to whoever he came across.

“Everyone always had a lot of time for him, he always had a lot of time for everyone. He never forgot where he came from.

“So much of that is what I want to be like as a person, not just as a golfer, so that’s why I feel quite a loss with Jarrod not being here anymore.”

Part of the next wave of young Australian golfers primed to make their mark on the world’s biggest tours, Herbert used his talent and self-belief to turn seven sponsor’s invitations on the European Tour this year into a full card for 2019.

Confident enough to ask Tiger Woods for a practice round at the British Open in July, Herbert played every possible event that he could until a runner-up finish at the Portugal Masters thrust him into the Race to Dubai finals series.

His stellar play continued all the way through to the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai two weeks ago, bringing admiration from more experienced Aussies on the European Tour.

“We played with him at the New South Wales Open last year and I said then that within two or three years this guy will be top 50 in the world,” said Jason Scrivener, who fell just short of qualifying for the European Tour finale in Dubai.

“He’s a really, really good player and he does all the right things. All the things that the top 50 players in the world are doing, he’s doing, plus he’s got a lot of talent.

“I’ve got no doubt he’ll kick on and be in the States before too long.

“Unless you’ve got status and a full card straight up you’ve got to (play every event you can). Even if you’ve got a Q School category you never know.

“You’re getting a call a couple of days before the tournament and that’s the hard thing about being an Australian, you’ve got to get on a flight and get in the day before the tournament starts.

“But he’s a good enough player to get through even if he’s not completely prepared but it’s certainly been pretty impressive.”

Quickly becoming one of the elder statesmen of the Aussie contingent on tour – and another player with roots in regional Victoria – Marc Leishman was similarly impressed by how Herbert had taken advantage of limited opportunities.

“I haven’t actually had much to do with Lucas, but I am aware of his year,” said Leishman.

“I did the Monday qualifiers on the Nationwide Tour at the time and he started out this year with no status.

“That’s pretty impressive to have the year he did, get to the final event in Dubai, off no status.

“He’s clearly a pretty big talent as well. You’ve got the guys on the PGA TOUR, Cam Davis, Curtis Luck this year.  I think you have to throw Lucas Herbert’s name amongst one of the guys to watch out for in the future for sure.”

It is already clear that Herbert will be representing Australia in the game’s biggest tournaments for the next decade but he also wants to take a leaf out of Greg Norman’s book – literally – and win regularly on home soil, starting this week at the Australian PGA Championship.

“I was reading Greg Norman’s book the last few weeks and he always said he always wanted to come back to Australia and be seen as a winner in Australia,” Herbert revealed.

“That resonated with me a lot. I would love to come back here and win our events if I’m going to have the career that I hope to have.

“To kick it off here on the Gold Coast would be great.”

European Tour member. Course architect. Tournament promoter. Maybe even a move to the other side of the microphone.

Geoff Ogilvy makes his return to the Australian PGA Championship for the first time in six years at RACV Royal Pines Resort from Thursday but it is life away from the golf course that now occupies much of the 41-year-old’s thinking.

Stepping back from the US PGA Tour after 20 years living overseas, the Ogilvy family are in the process of relocating back to Melbourne where the next phase of his career awaits.

A highly regarded voice in world golf, Ogilvy has already moved into the area of course design with the OCCM Golf team and is eager to explore other opportunities that may arise from a less hectic playing schedule.

Although he hasn’t played a round of golf with a scorecard in his back pocket for some five months, Ogilvy knows a strong week at Royal Pines will open the door to a semi-regular return to the European Tour in 2019 but is particularly excited about what else is in store.

“I feel like the golf world is my oyster a little bit,” said Ogilvy, the 2008 Australian PGA champion.

“I kind of wanted that second half of the golf life career to be based in Australia, because I’ve lived (in the US) a long time, and I’m kind of ready to come home.

“We’re going to be back in January and based out of Australia for the next… hopefully forever maybe and bounce around the world a little bit more. Play some more interesting places and still play a little bit in America but maybe get into the architecture side of things, maybe ask a few questions in the media one day or something like that.”

Unable to play the Australian Open two weeks ago due to a promise to take his three children to Disneyland, Ogilvy has strong opinions about the future scheduling of professional tournaments in Australia.

Starting his professional career in 1999 with two years full-time on the European Tour, Ogilvy would like to see an even greater alignment between Europe and the Australasian Tour.

The Australian PGA Championship is one of three co-sanctioned European Tour events in Australia and Ogilvy believes a shift in dates would breathe new life into tournament golf in Australia.

“I always like to have tournaments in January and February,” Ogilvy explained.

“I think we should use the Australian Open tennis as half of the sports world is coming down to watch it anyway.

“They’re all looking at Melbourne, we have better weather, for that part of the country at least, potentially go that side of summer.

“That European Tour co-sanction is huge for Australians, it’s really, really big, especially for the young guys.

“It’s really important and it’s definitely maybe the best carrot we have to get guys kind of in the middle of, Do I come or not, well it’s Europe, so I’d better go.  It’s an important thing, I think, for us.”

As Marc Leishman called for Thursday’s yellow theme honouring the memory of Jarrod Lyle to become an annual feature of the Aussie golf calendar, Ogilvy revealed that he and Robert Allenby were exploring the potential of a new tournament altogether in Lyle’s honour in Melbourne.

“I think it would be very appropriate that there might be room to create a new tournament in Australia,” said Ogilvy.

“The Masters is done; there might be space. Obviously there is a whole lot of stuff to get organised but hypothetically it seems like a cool idea to have a Jarrod Lyle Tournament. Whether it be a big tournament or a small tournament, but honours Jarrod every year.

“It’s a non-profit tournament that raises money for wherever the Lyle family wants to go, probably Challenge, I would expect. And I think you could create a feeling that might get quite a lot of enthusiasm behind the tournament and a lot of players coming in to play because everybody liked Jarrod.

“It would be appropriate, because he was a great golfer from Melbourne, and it would raise money for Challenge. Around that framework there is obviously a million different boxes you have to tick to get it to work but Robert and I loved the idea instantly.

“Conceptually it’s a cool idea. It would be amazing it if we could create a legacy tournament for Jarrod, which would do a lot of good and it would actually help the alternative motive, which is you get maybe a great tournament in Melbourne again.

“We talked about the idea and we both loved it.”

Former US Open winner Geoff Ogilvy has urged Australian sports fans to sit up and take notice of rising star Cameron Smith, believing the Queenslander is on the verge of becoming a top-10 player in the world.

Smith will defend his Australian PGA Championship at RACV Royal Pines Resort from Thursday having flown the flag for Australian golf at both the Australian Open at The Lakes Golf Club in Sydney and then as half of Team Australia at the World Cup of Golf in Melbourne.

Although he still looks like he should be spending the week on the Gold Coast at schoolies, the 25-year-old now occupies a lofty position in world golf, a position Ogilvy believes will only improve further in the years to come.

Smith’s ranking of 33 in the world puts him behind only Jason Day (11th) and Marc Leishman (21st) as Australia’s leading male golfer and Ogilvy is adamant that he has all the tools necessary to continue his rapid ascension.

“Australians need to watch Cam Smith,” said Ogilvy, who is this week making his first appearance at Royal Pines.

“He’s really good.  He’s got the respect of the whole locker room in the US, and that’s hard to get.

“To this point, every single time you see him play he’s a little bit better than the last time. You can’t say that about many guys.

“He’s improving at a nice rate. He’s easily one of the top 40, 50 guys, one that people notice and top 40 or 50, that’s really, really good. He could be a year way from being a top 10 guy.

“Jordan Spieth doesn’t do anything better than Cam Smith, except he holes more putts at the right time and gets up and down at the right time, and that’s not something you go to the range and practice.

“That’s just experience of playing, and some are quicker at learning that. Jordan learned it really young, and Cam is getting there, and physically he seems like he really knows what he’s doing with his golf swing.”

Few know Smith’s game better than World Cup teammate Marc Leishman and, like Ogilvy, says people in high places are taking notice of his development.

“When Cam is up on the leaderboard you take notice,” said Leishman, who is desperate to break his duck in Australia’s major tournaments in his final event of the year.

“He’s won tournaments before and someone who putts as well as he does you have to take notice of.

“I know everyone takes notice of him, particularly Ernie Els has taken a lot of notice of him, being captain of the Presidents Cup team.

“He’s improving a lot, he’s already a really great player and he’s only going to get better.”

It’s high praise that the unassuming Smith seems unsure of how to process – “Thanks Geoff” – and doesn’t influence the goals he has set for himself.

“My next goal for myself is to make myself a top 20 player in the world,” said Smith, who was tied for fifth in his second Masters appearance this year.

“I’ve made myself a top 50 player in the world, which was the goal for the last couple years.

“I don’t know, it seems like everything’s just happening so quickly.

“I’m not sure when it’s going to happen. Obviously getting that far up is a really big step and something that I want to do, but definitely not a time frame thing.

“I’m just trying to make myself better every day.

“If it happens, it happens.”

Lauded for his short game wizardry that was on full display last week at The Metropolitan Golf Club, Ogilvy believes it is in fact Smith’s unflappable demeanour that will elevate him to be one of the best players on the planet.

“Being unflappable is very difficult. You either are or you’re not, right?” Ogilvy reasoned.

“Naturally we are either the guy who yells at the car that brakes in front of us, or we’re like, oh, he slowed down.

“If you’re the guy who flips you’re just the guy who flips. Golf is a game that will flip you out. So it’s impressive.

“For someone like me, who it’s always driven me nuts, for Cam, he can get mad, but he just gets short term mad, and then it’s over.

“That’s impressive, and then that’s one of the attributes that will keep him there a long time, because he doesn’t seem to be riding the emotional roller coaster, like a lot of us.

“You’re either that way or you’re not, and he seems mentally really sound.”