Soil samples and site visits will form part of Stephen Dartnall’s preparations for this week’s TX Civil & Logistics WA PGA Championship at Kalgoorlie Golf Course as he makes a rare return to the tournament scene.
Reduced to a 54-hole event starting tomorrow, this year’s WA PGA Championship is not an official ISPS Handa PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit event due to the border restrictions but it has still attracted the best and brightest talent currently in Western Australia.
Last year’s runner-up Jarryd Felton returns hoping to go one better, veteran Brett Rumford is taking a break from giving lessons at Wembley Golf Complex to mix it with the young guns, while 2016 champion Dartnall is combining work with three rounds of tournament golf.
Once ranked the No.1 amateur in world golf, tour life wore on Dartnall quicker than most and he has since forged a new path in distributing golf and turfcare equipment from Broome in the state’s north to Esperance in the south.
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Kalgoorlie Golf Course and the local racetrack are regular clients of Dartnall’s Green Workz company and he took with him a boot-load of fertiliser and chemicals on the six-hour drive from Perth to the mining centre on Tuesday afternoon.
“We do quite a bit at Kalgoorlie. They’re a good client. We do a fair bit with the council and the racetrack. I’m out there every few months,” Dartnall revealed. “I think I’m actually going to get some soil samples on the greens tomorrow morning before the pro-am. Get those and send them away and then play the pro-am.”
Bursting onto the scene when he finished one shot shy of the playoff between Tim Clark and Mathew Goggin at the 2008 Australian Open at Royal Sydney, Dartnall played a full season on the Korn Ferry Tour in 2011 before gravitating more towards Asia.
Despite his one-stroke victory at Kalgoorlie four years ago, Dartnall’s willingness to spend so much time away from home had already begun to wane, playing just 12 events that attract Official World Golf Ranking points since 2017.
“I was a bit jaded and a bit over playing. Even when I was playing well I felt like I wanted something else,” Dartnall admitted.
“I haven’t really been able to put my finger on it, but if you’re going away all the time and 96 per cent of you wants to be away and 4 per cent wants to be back home doing something else, the 4 per cent seems to be magnified. Little bits of you want to be back home and over time it wears on you a little bit.
“I’ve been enjoying it more lately though, and I’m looking forward to going out and playing golf.”
That’s not to say that he has been ducking out of work early to get game-ready for Thursday.
“I’ve hardly played at all,” he said. “These next two weeks will be more than I’ve played for the entire year. By double the amount.
“I played a few holes at Royal Perth with the superintendent Mike Dennis a couple of weeks ago and the week before that I played 12 holes at Sea View with a few guys but before that it was a trade day at Meadow Springs for the Western Australia Superintendents Association. That was an 18-hole ambrose but I honestly can’t remember the last time I actually had a scorecard in my pocket.
“The unfortunate thing is that your handicap doesn’t change even though you don’t play, so I think I’m still stuck on plus-4 or plus-5.”
And while he enters the week with good memories and no expectations, the itch for a more regular return to tournament golf is still there to be scratched.
“It’s a pretty special place and an amazing golf course, whether you’ve won there or not,” Dartnall said of the stunning outback setting of Kalgoorlie. “The definition between the red desert and the green grass is pretty spectacular.
“I obviously like that course and it suits my eye pretty well so it is a good course to go back to and you do get a good feel from being a winner in the past. The biggest thing is probably going to play with no expectations. There’s more value in that than probably a lot of practice, to be honest.
“I’m looking forward to getting out there and playing and it would be good to even get some status in Australia back and focus on the bigger events. You could probably have a calendar of six or seven events and still maintain your card. That’s something I’ve had in the back of my mind as well but it’s easier said than done when you’re trying to do a lot of other things as well.
“The biggest thing for me is that mental aspect of not putting so much pressure on yourself to do well for your living.”
The 2020 TX Civil & Logistics WA PGA Championship will take place at Kalgoorlie Golf Course from October 8-10.
