New South Wales Open at Vintage
BY Bruce Young | Australasian PGA Tour | 2009 New South Wales Open | Preview | 25 Nov 2009
The New South Wales Golf Open hosted by Nathan Green is played this week at the Greg Norman designed Vintage Golf Club in Pokolbin in the Hunter Valley region of NSW.
The tournament is being played at this venue for the third consecutive year, Jason Norris winning in 2007 and Aaron Townsend blitzing the field last year to win by a massive seven shots over Steve Jones. Townsend last week completed a three shot victory at the New South Wales PGA in Wollongong.
The field includes successful PGA Tour rookie James Nitties and the man who will play host this week, the 2009, Canadian Open Champion Nathan Green.
The innovation of having a local champion to host the event continues the ’outside the square’ thinking of the NSW Golf Association which has allowed the event to regain much of its former prestige.
In addition to having Green as its host the tournament will also contain the Team Challenge Pro Am whereby amateurs and celebrities will play with the golfers over the final 36 holes of the event. This differs from other pro-am events where the amateurs are involved only prior to the final day of the event.
Other leading players in the field are Peter O’Malley who is looking to turn around one of his worst years in Europe in 2009 and New Zealander Tim Wilkinson who in his very first tournament in five months played very well at the Australian Masters.
Wilkinson suffered a thumb injury earlier in the season while playing on the USPGA Tour, eventually requiring surgery. His return in Melbourne was very encouraging and he will again play the PGA Tour in 2010 on a major medical exemption.
Recent WA Open winner, Michael Curtain, and WA PGA Champion, Andrew Bonhomme, are also in the field.
A highlights package of the event will be shown on ONE HD on Saturday November 5th.
