Seven of the top 12 players on the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit will hope to advance their status when the 2023-2024 resumes this week with the return of the Heritage Classic.
It will mark 10 years since The Heritage Golf & Country Club in the Yarra Valley outside Melbourne last hosted a PGA Tour of Australasia event, Gareth Paddison edging Michael Hendry in a Kiwi quinella at the 2014 Victorian PGA Championship.
A year earlier, David Bransdon defeated a young Lucas Herbert in a playoff at the Lexus of Blackburn Heritage Classic, the 2024 championship the first in a three-year commitment.
With 10 of this season’s 18 tournaments now completed, the importance of the Order of Merit comes more sharply into focus. There are DP World Tour cards, starts in major championships and direct pathways to the world’s top tours on offer in a race that looks set to go down to the wire.
Fortinet Australian PGA Championship winner Min Woo Lee is a runaway leader entering 2024 but, given he is about to embark on his first season on the PGA Tour, is unlikely to play the minimum number of events to be eligible.
That makes WA PGA champion Ben Eccles [pictured] the provisional No.1 but he will be up against a host of fellow contenders this week at The Heritage.
Reigning Order of Merit champion David Micheluzzi and current-season tournament winners Lachlan Barker, Kerry Mountcastle and Austin Bautista are all in the field, less than 75 points separating the top five currently eligible for the Order of Merit rewards.
After his win at Kalgoorlie, Eccles enhanced his Order of Merit hopes with a runner-up finish to Micheluzzi at the Victorian PGA Championship at Moonah Links.
As he starts the new year as the hunted, the 29-year-old insists his mindset has not changed since the season started.
“I’ve been talking to Grant (his coach Grant Field) about this whole thing and it’s not really about what it means and what it gets you,” Eccles said. “It’s more about continuing to move forward and keep trying to play golf the way I want to play golf. That’s the message I’m going to have, regardless of the result. I’m going to keep trying to apply myself the way that I have done from the start of the season all the way through until the end.”
As he prepares to embark on his debut season on the DP World Tour, Micheluzzi is establishing a solid defence of his crown in limited appearances. He earned 76.14 points for his share of second behind amateur Phoenix Campbell at the Queensland PGA Championship and then edged Eccles by a stroke two weeks later at the Vic PGA.
While disappointed not to make it a two-win season prior to the Christmas break, Eccles knows that result was important to his Order of Merit aspirations.
“Obviously the result was great. It sucked a bit to watch Dave win, but at the same time it was a great week,” Eccles reasoned. “Obviously the result was important in terms of the rankings and confidence-building and all that sort of stuff but there’s still a lot of golf to play and I’m just looking forward to that.”
Other players of note teeing it up this week are DP World Tour-bound Tom Power Horan, rookie professionals Kazuma Kobori and Jack Buchanan and the defending champion, Champions Tour Q-School graduate David Bransdon.
Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit
1 Min Woo Lee 1,044 (2)
2 Ben Eccles 340.37 (9)
3 Adam Scott 326.67 (2)
4 Marc Leishman 314.93 (2)
5 David Micheluzzi 312.90 (4)
6 Lachlan Barker 273.94 (10)
7 Kerry Mountcastle 267.28 (10)
8 Austin Bautista 265.75 (9)
9 Lucas Herbert 245.23 (2)
10 Simon Hawkes 233.26 (7)
Players must play a minimum of four events to be eligible for the Order of Merit
