Emerald Lakes hosts exciting week of golf
BY Bruce Young | Von Nida Tour | 2007 Queensland PGA | Preview | 30 Oct 2007
Inclement weather over the past few days in South East Queensland is not expected to slow proceedings at the Von Nida Tour’s Greater Building Society Queensland PGA Championship, being staged this week on the Gold Coast. The Championship itself will be preceded by the now highly popular Daikin Night Golf Shootout which takes place on Tuesday night over nine floodlit holes.
The Greater Building Society Queensland PGA Championship and the Daikin Night Shootout are being staged for the fifth consecutive year at the Emerald Lakes Golf Club, a facility which has proven itself to be a superb tournament venue since the event was first staged there in 2003.
Following on from the North Queensland X Ray Services Cairns Classic and last week’s Mirvac – City Pacific Queensland Open, the tournament brings to a close the Queensland swing of Von Nida events in 2007 prior to next week’s New South Wales Open at the Vintage Golf Club in the Hunter Valley.
Once again the field is a mixture of established and emerging players, headed in terms of experience and class by the Australasian Tour’s greatest ever money earner and now the Chairman of its Board, Peter Senior. Senior played last week’s Queensland Open after a three week trip to Scotland, India and Japan where he not only played with some success but spent time continuing to foster a closer relationship between the various tours in those regions and the Australasian PGA Tour.
Senior has yet to win the Greater Building Society Queensland PGA Championship at Emerald Lakes but has gone close on one or two occasions, more especially the first time it was held in 2003 when he finished third behind David Diaz.
Senior will be joined in the field by two recent winners of the event, the defending champion Cameron Percy, who has just flown in after graduating through Stage One of last week’s USPGA Tour School and Kurt Barnes, who in winning in 2004 recorded an unbelievable winning score of 29 under. Barnes avoided having to go to Stage One in the US but is entered for Stage Two in two weeks time. He won by only one shot in 2003 over South Australia’s Gary Simpson but there was a gap of seven shots back to the third placed player.
Percy won last year, recording his second Von Nida Tour victory in three starts in doing so and the talented Victorian is back again after rushing back from Texas where he finished 17th at his PGA Tour School venue.
Another who has flown back from a successful trip to the US is Andrew Bonhomme who has taken all before him in recent months on this year’s QLD Sunshine Tour. Bonhomme finished 8th at his venue in Texas. Aaron Townsend is another who has made it through to Stage Two in the US and this week he looks to go one better than when beaten in a playoff for this event in 2003 by David Diaz.
Recent Cairns Classic winner Paul Donahoo, who also finished 7th last week, is in the field and while last week’s Queensland Open winner Ryan Haller, is unable to play this week because of Tour School commitments in Japan, others who did well at Gainsborough Greens, runner-up Ed Stedman, and placegetters, Craig Scott, Tim Wood and Ben Bloomfield are in the field.
Under a policy adopted to foster the development of the game, the Queensland PGA and tournament sponsors have offered invites to several leading amateurs including the Queensland Amateur Champion, Rika Batibasaga, locals Blake McGrory and Ray Beaufils and New Zealander, Mark Boe, who in July of this year spent 13 days in a coma after a life threatening fall from a balcony in New Zealand. Boe worked at Emerald Lakes last year before returning to his native New Zealand to attend University and this year made the New Zealand Four Nations Team prior to his fall. Last week he pre-qualified to play the Queensland Open but this week gets a start on invite.
The Daikin Night Golf Shootout, which starts at 6.30pm on Tuesday evening, will feature several of the tournament’s leading players along with celebrated young Gold Coast based Korean, Amy Yang.
Yang won the ANZ Ladies Masters in 2006 but has turned professional since and in between several starts on the Ladies European Tour in 2007 and a start at this year’s US Women’s Open, the 18 year old has completed her HSC at Robina State High School. Yang has advanced from Stage One qualifying for the 2008 USLPGA Tour School and will attend the Final Stage in late November.
The Daikin Shootout takes on a new look this year with a series of holes close to the clubhouse being used in rotation for the event and a pontoon constructed over the lake behind the 10th tee added to provide a new dimension and extra distance to the starting hole.
