Great QLD PGA line-up in Toowoomba
BY Bruce Young | Australasian PGA Tour | 2012 Queensland PGA Championship | Preview | 22 Feb 2012
The Queensland PGA Championship returns to the City Golf Club in Toowoomba for the third successive year, the event attracting its strongest field in its three year history at the venue.
Twelve months ago the City Golf Club and Toowoomba generally, both of which had been badly impacted by the disastrous floods of January, received support from the likes of Craig Parry and Peter O’Malley who came to add strength to a field when the event desperately needed it.
This year, those players are back and have brought many others with them ensuring the 2012 version provides some of the highest quality golfers seen in the Darling Downs region for many years.
The defending champion this year is the New Zealand left hander Gareth Paddison who arrives in Toowoomba in peak form having won the Victorian PGA Championship last week. Paddison has status on the Japan Golf Tour in 2012 and with the comfort zone of that behind him is playing some of his best golf.
The highest world ranked player in the field is another who will play on the Japan Tour this season in Kurt Barnes. Barnes won on both the OneAsia and Japan Tours in 2011 and recently finished runner-up at the Victorian Open soon after finishing inside the top ten at the J.B. Were Masters.
Barnes elevated his standing in the game to a whole new level in 2011 after being on the crossroads with his career early in the year.
Barnes finished 6th in this event last year and so, on paper at least, he will start as the favourite.
If he is to win, or even contend, Barnes will need to be on his game as players such as Paddison, Andre Stolz, Peter O’Malley, Paul Sheehan, Ashley Hall, recent NSW Open winner, Adam Crawford, New Zealander Mike Hendry and Craig Parry, to name but a few, will provide a tough assignment for him.
The field will also include several of Queensland’s leading amateurs including Daniel McGraw and Cameron Smith who finished second and third respectively at last week’s Riversdale Cup and Caboolture’s Daniel Nisbet who finished runner-up at the Australian Amateur Championship in January then won the Lake Macquarie Amateur the following week.
The British Amateur Champions in each of the last two years, Jin Jeong and Bryden McPherson, will also take their place in the field. McPherson, still an amateur, is only five weeks away from teeing it up at Augusta National in this year’s Masters.
The 2012 Queensland PGA Championship might not boast the sort of prize-money many of these players will be playing for in the months ahead in 2012 but there appears little doubt that the event will be very keenly contested.
Discuss this article in our forums
