O'Malley to play Buy.Com Tour event
IN: News | Nationwide | LaSalle Bank Open (2002) | Preview | by Bruce Young | 07 Aug 2002
Australian Peter O'Malley will tee it up this week in the Buy.Com Tour's La Salle Bank Open in Illinois on a mission that is clearly double edged. He will use this event both as a lead in to next week's PGA Championship at Hazeltine and as a means of gaining ground on the Buy.Com Tour money list.
O'Malley, who earlier in the year finished fourth at the Buy.Com Tour's opening event, the Jacobs Creek Classic in Adelaide, then the next week won the Holden Clearwater Classic in Christchurch, had led this season's Buy.Com Tour money list for several weeks. His return to Europe however has seen his ranking slip to fifteenth ($US117,000). A win this week and the accompanying $US81,000, would see him return to the top two or three. That would then leave him well placed to gain one of the fifteen cards available at season's end for next year's USPGA Tour. Last year's fifteenth placed player (Michael Long) finished the season with $US161,000 in earnings and, despite the fact that it will likely be slightly higher this year, it is still a very reachable target for O'Malley.
Peter Lonard has shown this season, his first in the US, that a player with great ball striking skills and plenty of international experience can make the grade in the US and that it is perhaps not quite the quantum leap that has often been perceived previously. O'Malley is certainly a fine ball striker and does not lack experience. Lonard has also shown that playing on quality greens week in and week out will yield significant improvement in putting and a similiar improvement in that department of O'Malley's game, would have him amongst the game's elite.
If by chance O'Malley does not make it via the Buy.Com route, he still has another bite at the cherry by gaining a start at the final stage of qualifying for the USPGA Tour. This has come about as a result of his second placing on the Australasian Tour money list earlier this year.
O'Malley has indicated in the past that he was keen to get his children's schooling well and truly under way before he makes the move to the US. The opportunity now presented to him and the lure of the USPGA Tour may however be too great to let slide. One thing is for sure, if he is able to earn his way on to the USPGA Tour, then there is every reason to see him as yet another Australian successfully plying his trade in the US.
