Leishman named PGA Tour Rookie of Year

BY Anthony Powter | 21 Dec 2009

Over the weekend Marc Leishman was named PGA Tour Rookie of the year by his fellow competitors on the PGA Tour and the 26-year-old becomes the first Australian to be have won rookie honours since the award’s inception in 1990.

During the 2009 season Leishman posted three top-10 finishes, including a tied 2nd at the BMW Championship in Chicago, and was the lone rookie to qualify for the season ending Tour Championship. In the process Leishman collected over US$1.7 million in prize money to finish 47th on the season’s money list.

It was a year of breakthroughs for Leishman. His scoring average of 70.59 had him under the tour’s average of 71.04 and placed the Australian in a tie for 61st. While Leishman did not win the $US7.5 million BMW Championship back in September, his brilliant second place finish alongside Jim Furyk, eight strokes behind Tiger Woods, was an achievement all the same.

The result set the stage for a solid season ending period and would eventually secure his immediate playing future for 2010.

Leishman at the time moved from 67th in the FedEx Cup points to 16th and claimed his place in the season ending 30-man field for The Tour Championship. The significance of such an effort? Leishman was now automatically exempt for next year’s US Masters, US Open at Pebble Beach and The Open Championship at St Andrews.

In a space of just two main seasons in the US where Leishman played on the 2008 Nationwide and 2009 on the PGA Tour, he had achieved one of his lifetime goals to play in the Majors and at Augusta.

“The progression to get to the main tour has been what I kind of expected,” said Leishman yesterday from his hometown of Warrnambool, in country Victoria.

“I maybe did not take the exact road to get there that I wanted to take, but I managed to get there in about the right time period. To do what I’ve managed to achieve in my first year on the main tour was pretty unbelievable and being named Rookie of the year just tops off the year really.”

Leishman quietly announced that he had turned professional in August 2005. By current standards with what has been set with recent professional announcements, his was a low key introduction and Leishman went in search of a tour after missing out at the US Q-School that season. Following a brief stint in Korea, a few pay-to-plays in the US, Leishman returned home to compete on the Von Nida Tour during the 2005-06 season.

It was Leishman’s ability to attack a golf course and shoot low numbers which separated him at the time from other emerging professionals on these foundation tours. Those who knew Leishman also knew that he had the game to make it to the next level, particularly with the way he could shoot low 60’s during a tournament to blast a field away.

This is Leishman’s style of golf and it’s exactly how he won his first two professional tournaments in the 2006 Toyota Southern Classic on the Australian Von Nida Tour with a victory of seven shots, after an opening 60, and the 2006 Jisan Resort Open on the Korean PGA Tour where he opened with a 61.

During the 2008 Nationwide Tour season Leishman again blew away the field at the WNB Golf Classic to record his maiden Nationwide Tour win shooting an incredible 21-under-par 267 and equalling the Nationwide Tour’s largest margin of eleven shots. The record still stands.

Records aside, Leishman has made his ground on the world’s richest tour during 2009. With a new base in Virginia Beach, near Washington DC, where he has bought a home and announced his engagement to a local girl, Audrey Hills, life both on and off the course is on the way up for Leishman.

“I’m starting to feel a lot more relaxed out there on tour,” he says.

“A lot of doors have now opened for me for everything, with sponsors, starts and the last few months have really kick-started my career.”

Leishman’s game is moulded from struggles and uncertainty he incurred during those formative years on tour. Like many emerging professionals his early years were marked by grit, determination and the desire to succeed. Leishman never lost sight of his goals despite the setbacks along the way, no more so than missing his playing card in the US in 2005 and going in search of a tour in 2006.

These struggles kept him motivated and moving forward.

“Playing Monday qualifiers on the Nationwide Tour was certainly the toughest thing I encountered,” said Leishman on the weekend.

“You miss out on a spot and then have the whole week off with no tournament to play. That and travelling alone were the hardest things. Yet you look back at it all and see that it has been worthwhile.”

From the uncertainty of the Nationwide Tour in 2008 to the precariousness of a rookie season in the PGA Tour in 2009, Leishman’s immediate future is secured.

“To know that I’ve got the first three Majors to play in 2010 is huge,” he says.

“To also be able to choose a schedule to play on the main tour is a big thing as well. This will be the first year that I’ll be able to do that and it is going to be great knowing that I’ve got the starts. I’m definitely looking forward to next year.”

Players of Leishman’s calibre are making us wonder what will come of them. Whilst making predictions as to grander is risky in any sport, especially with the fickle nature of golf, with Marc Leishman you cannot help but think he’ll be around for a long while.

Leishman’s peers on the PGA Tour have in their own right given their stamp of approval by honouring him as the Tour’s rookie of the year based on his efforts during 2009.

It’s a richly deserved honour for one of our most talented and emerging professionals making his name in the US.

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