We take you through five outstanding moments from Australian golfers around the world this year.
Cameron Smith’s final round at the 150th Open Championship
Smith’s closing 64 at St Andrews was a ‘where-were-you-when-it-happened’ moment in Australian sport – just like Australia’s 1983 America’s Cup victory, Cathy Freeman’s 400 metres win at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and Adam Scott’s 2013 Masters win. Smith overcame a four-shot deficit in the final round to overnight co-leaders Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland. Reeling in McIlroy, an overwhelming crowd favourite, on UK soil, at the Home of Golf, at the 150th edition of the Open, is as unbelievable now as it was in July. Smith came home with a back nine of 30 (five straight birdies from the 10th and another at the 18th) to win by one shot. It was the lowest back nine during a final round by a major champion in history.
Minjee Lee cementing herself as one of Australia’s greatest ever
Lee catapulted herself into the pantheon of Australian golfing greats by becoming the nation’s sixth player to win multiple Majors. The 26-year-old, who broke through the Major barrier at last year’s Evian Championship in France, cruised to a four-shot victory at the US Women’s Open at Pine Needles in June. Lee’s victory ensured she joined five other Australian golf icons to have won multiple Majors: seven-time Major winner Karrie Webb; five-time Open Championship winner Peter Thomson; Jan Stephenson (du Maurier Classic – 1981, LPGA Championship – 1982, US Women’s Open – 1983); David Graham (PGA Championship – 1979, US Open – 1981); and Greg Norman (The Open – 1986, 1993).
Jeffrey Guan’s rise
Sydney teenager Guan continued his incredible amateur career with a wire-to-wire win at the Junior Players Championship at the famed TPC Sawgrass, Florida (an American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) event) in September. It came six months after fellow Australian Cameron Smith, on the same course, won the elite Players Championship on the PGA Tour. While Guan was in the US, the 18-year-old Bexley boy also made the quarter-finals in the US Junior Amateur at Bandon Dunes in August and fourth place in the historic Trans-Miss Championship at Denver Country Club in July. He then returned to Australia and recorded consecutive top-10 results in pro events, a T9 at the WA PGA Championship and a fourth at the WA Open.
Harrison Crowe going viral, but also victorious
This year, Sydneysider Harrison Crowe became the third Australian to win the Asia Pacific Amateur (after Antonio Murdaca, 2014, and Curtis Luck, 2016). Crowe held his nerve in a nail-biting final round to secure a one-shot victory at Amata Spring Country Club in Thailand and punch his ticket to the 2023 Masters and the 151st Open Championship at Royal Liverpool. But the Sydneysider remains in another club all on his own after pulling off this ridiculous trick shot earlier in the year.
Uploaded to YouTube in June last year by “Random Golf Club Films”, host Erik Anders Lang made the pilgrimage to St Andrews in search of the truth regarding an old pub tale doing the rounds. The video begins with Anders Lang explaining he had heard a legendary story about a golfer hitting the 18th green at The Old Course from the cobblestone street corner up the block outside The Dunvegan, the course’s famous 19th hole. Ridiculous. Fanciful. Not possible … surely? After surveying a group of liquored-up locals, Anders Lang randomly bumps into Crowe and his Aussie mates, who had clearly been busy building up enough ‘Dutch courage’ to offer to reenact the heroic moment for the cameras. Anders Lang duly accepts, and what unfolds next is nothing short of pure sorcery. Check it out (LANGUAGE WARNING!) here:
Kirsten Rudgeley representing Australia at Augusta
Kirsten Rudgeley is now a pro, debuting at the Women’s Australian Open recently after a decorated amateur career and a sensational 2022. The Perth native, who in 2021 won a professional event at the Helen Holm Scottish Women’s Open Championship, backed it up this year with a tie for eighth at the Augusta National Women’s Amateur. She was the first Australian to make the 36-hole cut at the event which began in 2019. Rudgeley finished seventh at the inaugural Australian WPGA Championship in January, while she also defeated Grace Kim to claim The Athena at Sandy Links and was seventh at the Vic Open.
