In-form Cameron John is moving closer to his goal of winning the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit, but is determined to not let the chase for the No.1 spot become a distraction across the remainder of the season.
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A runner-up finish at Webex Players Series Victoria on Sunday vaulted the 25-year-old ahead of Christopher Wood into top spot with seven tournaments left on the 2025-2026 schedule.
The margins remain close, especially considering the big points on offer in the New Zealand Open and ISPS Handa Japan Australasia Championship in March. In those two events, 760 Order of Merit (OOM) points will go to each winner compared to the 190 on offer for the victor at Webex Players Series Murray River this week.
The potential rewards at the end of the season for John – who leads by 66.45 points – and his chasers are big, with the OOM winner following the path taken by David Micheluzzi, Kazuma Kobori and Ryan Peake to the DP World Tour, as well as earning a start at the Open Championship.
“Obviously there’s still a bunch of weeks to go,” the new No.1 said ahead of the first round at Cobram Barooga starting on Thursday.
“I had a good chat with [mindset coach] Ben Crowe last night and we’re just identifying what are some distractions I guess that can potentially come up in the next six or seven events. That’s probably one of them, but it’s one that you want to have. It’s not necessarily a bad distraction, but it’s just something that I’ve identified.
“We all want to finish on top of the Order of Merit. We all want to play on another tour, but it is just an opportunity and we just keep playing week in, week out and hopefully it goes my way.”
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This week’s field includes Wood and four other players currently in the top 10 – James Marchesani (No.4), Nathan Barbieri (No.5), Cory Crawford (No.9) and Jay Mackenzie (No.10).
Only Wood and Crawford have had wins this season – at the NSW Open and PNG Open, respectively – while it was almost a third title for John at Rosebud on Sunday until his putter ran cold on the final day, including missing the decisive putt from inside two metres on the fourth and final hole of the playoff against West Australian Jordan Doull.
He’s taken the positive out of that close call that his all-round game is still in great shape.
“I feel like I’m hitting the ball well. Everything felt like it was going nicely over the weekend, just didn’t roll any putts in,” John said.
“The way I looked at my game was that I was playing better than the guys I played with over the weekend and sometimes it goes that way. I watched ‘Barbs’ (Nathan Barbieri) play the final round of the Vic Open and I didn’t see him make a single putt. It felt like that for me on Sunday just gone.”
Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit standings
1 Cameron John 692.44
2 Christopher Wood 625.99
3 Marc Leishman 534.66
4 James Marchesani 514.46
5 Nathan Barbieri 454.38
6 Will Florimo 442.99
7 Cameron Smith 428.00*
8 Austin Bautista 414.51
9 Cory Crawford 376.85
10 Jay Mackenzie 350.15
* Yet to play minimum four events to be eligible for final standings
