Johnnie Walker Classic: They don't come much better than this
IN: News | Australasian PGA | Johnnie Walker Classic (2003) | Preview | by Bruce Young | 10 Feb 2003
The largest purse ever in an Australasian Tour event and arguably the greatest field ever assembled in this country ensures that this week's Johnnie Walker Classic at the Lake Karrinyup course in Perth will be one of Australia's truly great events.
It is true that the Accenture Match Play carried more prizemoney and the field for the 1997 Johnnie Walker at Hope Island had a great field also but this appears on paper, at least, to be something quite special.
Just look at the lineup of leading players; Els, Goosen, Garcia, Faldo, Allenby, Bjorn, Westwood, Casey, Immelman, Scott, Rose, Woosnam to name a few.
A purse of $A2,850,000 to tempt those not otherwise being paid substantial appearance money, so all looks in readiness for an interesting week. The tournament is tri-sanctioned between the European, Australasian and Asian Tours.
Lake Karrinyup was designed in 1928 by Alex Russell with whom Alistair Mackenzie had developed a partnership, but it was Russell himself that visited Perth in February of 1928 and drew up an overall routing plan and individual green plans. He then stayed while the first of the greens was constructed before leaving the rest to the devices of the club and it's staff and returning to Melbourne. The course opened in 1928 although the next time he (Russell) saw Lake Karrinyup was in 1933 when invited by the Club to inspect the finished product. Further alterations were made and the course, finally to the approval of Russell, was completed by the end of 1933.
Thomson, Wolveridge and Perrett were involved in further remodelling works in the late nineties more especially fairway and greenside bunkering and the redesign and repositioning of several greens and many tees.
The greens are Penncross bent and the course now measures over 7200 yards.
The defending champion is Retief Goosen, who won in a canter here last year, in fact by eight shots, from Pierre Fulke with Garcia third and Els fourth.
