Much has changed in the 750 days since Adam Scott raised the Joe Kirkwood Cup for the second time.
The world and how we operate within it looks drastically different due to the COVID-19 global pandemic and our move towards a ‘new normal’ that somewhat resembles the past continues to hit stumbling blocks.
The field for this week’s Fortinet Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland Golf Club also bears little resemblance to that which was played a little more than two years ago.
Ongoing travel restrictions have kept recognised names such as Scott, Cameron Smith and Marc Leishman from making the trip home for a second straight year, opening the way for a new breed of young professionals to emerge.
As golf has surged in popularity thanks to its outdoor nature and in-built social distancing, so too has the influence of Australian golfers on the world stage become more prominent.
This week’s star attraction, Min Woo Lee, has won two European Tour events since Scott’s two-stroke win and recently received a letter with golf’s most coveted return address – Augusta National Golf Club – inviting him to play in the Masters for the first time in 2022.
Another to have been invited to play in the Masters for the first time this year is Lucas Herbert, who, a month after Scott won in front of thousands of adoring golf fans in his home state, won on the DP World Tour for the first time, taking the Omega Dubai Desert Classic in a dramatic finale.
He followed that up with wins on both the DP World Tour (Dubai Duty Free Irish Open) and PGA Tour (Butterfield Bermuda Championship) last year, the first Australian to win on both tours in a calendar year since Scott himself in 2008.
We’ve had Smith almost win the Masters, Cam Davis is now a PGA Tour winner and Jason Scrivener has been a top-100 player in the world. Yet what is perhaps most exciting is the promise of what’s still to come. The past two years have seen the injection into the professional ranks of players all capable of carrying the tag of ‘next big thing’.
The list of those to turn professional in 2021 alone after outstanding amateur careers makes for impressive reading. Elvis Smylie, Jack Thompson, Louis Dobbelaar, Jed Morgan, Lawry Flynn and Haydn Barron all took the pro plunge last year and will view this week’s Australian PGA Championship as the chance to play their way into the history books.
Smylie and Thompson both finished runner-up in a PGA Tour of Australasia event during their amateur days, Flynn was third at the 2019 NT PGA Championship, Morgan (in 2020) and Dobbelaar (in 2021) are the two most recent Australian Amateur champions and Barron won the Spalding Park Open as an amateur.
Since turning professional Thompson has two top-10s, a runner-up finish at the New South Wales Open and was a last-start winner at the Gippsland Super 6 in December.
Smylie has two top-three finishes as a professional, Flynn won on debut at the Maroochy River Pro-Am on the adidas PGA Pro-Am Series, Dobbelaar was tied for third at TPS Sydney prior to turning pro and has since earned his card on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica for 2022.
New South Welshman Nathan Barbieri was third at the NT PGA in 2020, turned professional in December and in his second start as a professional snared third spot at the 2021 TPS Victoria event at Rosebud Country Club, adding further top-10s at the NSW Open and Vic PGA in December.
Track back even a few months prior to Scott’s win and you add the likes of Blake Windred and David Micheluzzi as relatively new faces within Australia’s professional ranks, Windred earning his first pro title at the Victorian PGA Championship in December.
Yes, much has changed in the past 750 days but during the next seven, these fresh faces will step forward and start to become the new stars of Australian golf.
The Fortinet Australian PGA Championship and Fortinet Australian WPGA Championship tee off on Thursday at Royal Queensland Golf Club in Brisbane. Click here for a wide range of ticket options starting from $20 through Ticketek. Kids aged 16 years and under are admitted free when accompanied by a paying adult.
