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Steve Rawlings previews and will provide weekend in-play blog
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Homegrown players have strong record at Royal Queensland
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Andy Swales brings course info and form players
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Australian PGA Championship tips and predictions
Steve Rawlings: The home contingent has dominated this event and America's Harold Varner, who won at Royal Pines in 2016, is the only winner since England's David Howell in 1998 that didn't come from Down Under. And multiple winners are very common.
Since it was first staged back in 1929, lots of players have won the event at least twice and Aussie legends, Bill Dunk and Kell Nagle, won the event 11 times between 1949 and 1976. Nagle holds the record with six titles.
Min Woo Lee is the most likely Australian to take the title and given the superb record of previous winners, he looks a very fair price at around 11/112.00.
We haven't seen Lee since he finished 10th in the Baycurrent Classic in Japan in October (played nicely after a 73 in round one), so we're taking his wellbeing on trust but with course form figures reading 4-4-1-15, he's highly likely to contend and anything in double-figures looks worth taking.
Connor McKinney was born in Scotland but moved to Perth (the Western Australia one) as a youngster and that background is reflected in a stellar amateur career.
He won the St Andrews Links Trophy and also captured the Australian Amateur before turning pro in 2022.
The 23-year-old returned to Scotland in August and won the Tartan Tour's Musselburgh Masters (his first win as a pro) while earlier this month McKinney achieved the rare feat of coming through all three stages of Q-School, securing his card with a superb tied second place finish.
In this event he's made the cut twice and two years ago McKinney was fourth after an opening lap of 66.
Last time out in Australia he was 12th following day one of the Western Australian Open so there's enough there to throw a dart on the 06:10 starter at a three-figure price.
Back Connor McKinney each-way for FRL
Given Harold Varner is the only winner of the event this century not to be Australian, it makes sense to concentrate on the home contingent and the first of my two Aussie picks is the four-time PGA Tour of Australia winner, David Micheluzzi.
The 29-year-old hasn't had the greatest of seasons on the DP World Tour, and he needed to make the cut in his final event, the Genesis Championship, to make sure he kept his card (finished 109th in the standings) but it's impossible to ignore his impressive course form.
Micheluzzi has won three of the last 14 tournaments he's played in on home soil and he has course form figures in this event reading 9-6-18-5 so I was pleasantly surprised to see him trading at as big as 150.0149/1.
Back David Micheluzzi (2Us)
Place order to lay 8 Us @ 10.09/1 and 12 Us @ 2.01/1
Course Form Pick:
Australian Smith is not in the best form, finishing 47th and 40th in his last two outings, but he loves playing here. He was runner-up last year and, prior to a missed cut in 2023, won the tournament. He will be hoping to bring home the kind of form he displayed at the Majors this year where he finished in the top 20 at two (The Masters and US PGA) and top 30 at the other two.