Enigmatic Kim Felton wins Western Australian PGA
BY Bruce Young | Von Nida Tour | 2004 Western Australian PGA Championship | Wrap | 30 May 2004
If 29-year-old West Australian Kim Felton could be granted one wish it may just be that more professional golf tournaments are played in his home state. Today, at the West Australian Golf Club’s Yokine course, Felton successfully defended his Western Australian PGA Championship for the second time, when he won by three over New South Welshman, Ben Burge with Victoria’s David Bransdon another two shots back alone in third.
For Felton this was his third win in professional golf, each of those wins coming in this event. Felton turned pro in 1999 following a brilliant amateur career where, amongst other achievements he won the Australian Amateur Championship in 1997 and was the leading individual at the Eisenhower in 1998. In the 1999 Australian Masters at Huntingdale he finished third behind Craig Spence and turned pro later that year.
His performances as an amateur have not yet repeated themselves in the professional arena however. Although there has been the occasional good performance in Asia, including a runner up place at one of his very first tournaments there in 2000 and a fourth placing at the Australian Masters in his first year as a professional, there has been little else of note. When Felton is good he is very, very good and when bad, well enough said. That variation can happen within a few days as this week’s performance would suggest. Missing the cut last week in Korea by three, he flew back to his hometown to win. A few years back Felton had missed the cut at the Ford Open in Adelaide by nine shots and then flew straight to Hong Kong for the Hong Kong Open the next week, only to shoot a 60 in round one.
Once he can work out a means of developing consistency then Felton may well go on to have the fine professional career that many predicted. He is a highly talented player with a fine golf swing but as this game has shown time and time again it takes more to succeed in professional golf than just looking good.
Felton will likely return to the Asian Tour when it restarts in August, but first he has a place in the British Open at Royal Troon, qualifying for that event via the newly introduced International Qualifying in Malaysia in March. He has played eight events this season in Asia with limited success and in his early season events on the Australasian Tour had made only one cut, the New Zealand PGA.
With the confidence that this win will bring and the opportunity to play the British Open for the first time Felton would seem about ready to move his career to another level. We have thought that previously but have been let down. Perhaps now, the real Kim Felton is about to stand up.
The WAPGA was a Von Nida Tour event, the next tournament begins on June 24th in Townsville when the Queensland Masters gets underway.
