QLD PGA a great tonic for Toowoomba
BY Bruce Young | Australasian PGA Tour | 2011 Cellarbrations Queensland PGA Championship | Preview | 23 Feb 2011
It has been more than a month since the last PGA Tour of Australasia event and it will be another eight months or more until the next one but, despite its stand alone nature, this week’s Cellarbrations Queensland PGA Championship has attracted a strong field.
Toowoomba, or more specifically the City Golf Club, plays host to this event which was resurrected in 2009 after a year’s absence. The tournament became the victim of a schedule reshuffle in 2010 with no event being played that year but in 2011 it returns with a significantly stronger field.
Players such as Peter O’Malley, Craig Parry and Paul Sheehan might not normally have played the event but they have answered the call by both the PGA and the good folk of Toowoomba to be part of the event. Their involvement in the tournament and in several community events during tournament week will play a key role in the success of the event as this city of 100,000 looks to get things back on track.
The City of Toowoomba and the City Golf Club were under siege six weeks ago during January’s floods but if the condition of the golf course in yesterday’s Pro Am is anything to go by then the City Golf Club has come through in fine style. The course is in superb condition with the rough grown, the fairways profiled and the Bent greens in outstanding condition.
In 2009 Steven Bowditch won the event with a front running performance that would see him finish the 72 holes at 20 under par and six shots ahead of Tasmania’s Clint Rice. At that time Bowditch was a struggling Nationwide Tour player but the victory at the City Golf Club that year saw him turn his fortunes around, going on to great heights in 2010 when winning a Nationwide Tour event and claiming back his PGA Tour card.
Bowditch is in Mexico this week for a PGA Tour event but any one of a number of highly talented and credentialed Australasians could emerge with the victory and the sort of career boost that Bowditch experienced back then.
It is, however, hard to imagine any player getting anywhere the amazing scoring Bowditch produced two years ago. The golf course is expected to play considerably more difficult than was the case back then with the rough a little more penalising and the greens running significantly quicker.
Paul Sheehan recently won the Victorian Open and both he and the runner-up that week, Matthew Griffin, are in the field. Griffin also recorded top ten finishes at the Australian Open and the Australian PGA Championship.
Sheehan will be heading back to the Japan Tour in three weeks time but a victory here would be great preparation for another tilt in Japan where one of his greatest moments in golf came when winning the 2006 Japan Open.
2010 NSW Open winner and runner-up at the recent Victorian PGA Championship, Peter O’Malley, provides additional strength to the field and although he has struggled in his most recent European Tour campaigns he seems to have found a new lease of life of late. His accuracy from the tee will work in his favour around this rather tight layout.
Parry played poorly in what would be his last year in Japan in 2010 and his form since has not been good but his credentials carry him a long way and he might do reasonably well.
Scott Laycock won the Surf Coast knockout in what was essentially a limited holes match play format a month ago and will be boosted by that victory.
Kurt Barnes recently earned a start at the Open Championship later this year and he has shown on many occasions the capacity to contend in events of this type.
There will be a winner of the tournament no doubt but the overall winner for the week might just be the City of Toowoomba. The manner in which it has bounced back from one of the blackest days in its history is deserving of a successful tournament, one the Community seems all too keen to embrace.
