WA Open signals start of summer
BY Bruce Young | Australasian PGA Tour | 2009 WA Open | Preview | 21 Oct 2009
The 2009 Australasian Tour continues this week with the first of eight events between now and mid December being played at the Cottesloe Golf Club in the beachside suburbs of Perth.
Five of those events will be the State and Regional Championships which in more recent years stood alone as part of the Von Nida Tour but in 2009 all such events now come under the umbrella of the PGA Tour. Every cent of prize-money in such events counts towards the overall 2009 Australasian Tour money list, the winner of which will receive the Von Nida Order of Merit Trophy at the completion of the Australian PGA Championship at Hyatt Regency Coolum in mid December.
The John Hughes Geely Western Australian Open gets proceedings underway this Thursday, followed next week by the Laurance Scrap Metals WA PGA Championship in Bunbury two hours south of Perth, then the Queensland PGA Championship at the City Golf Club in Toowoomba, the Australian Masters at Kingston Heath, the New South Wales PGA Championship at the Wollongong Golf Club, the NSW Open at the Vintage Golf Club in the Hunter Valley, the Australian Open at the NSW Golf Club and the Australian PGA Championship at the re-routed Hyatt Regency Coolum.
The WA Open’s defending champion would have been James Nitties who won a shortened event last year before heading to the US to earn his PGA Tour card. Nitties is playing this week’s Frys.com tournament in Arizona.
The current Victorian Open and Victorian PGA Champions, Ashley Hall and Andre Stolz, are in this week’s field along with one of Australia’s success stories on this year’s Asian Tour Adam Blyth. Andrew Bonhomme and Steve Bowditch are back from frustrating years on the Nationwide Tour.
Perth based New Zealander, Michael Long, who last year won the WAPGA Championship and who last week finished third in the One Asia Tour’s Midea China Classic.
