-
DP World Tour kicks off Down Under
-
Aussies have won all bar one renewal this century
-
Hot putting looks key at Royal Queensland
What happened last week? Sami seals the deal at Sea Island
My Find Me a 100 Winner pick, Andrew Novak, was matched at as low as 2.447/5 to win the RSM Classic as early as Friday when he led by four after a run of six straight birdies in round two but that was as good as it got for the 100.099/1 chance.
He led by a stroke at halfway but after a lacklustre level-par 70 on Saturday, he bogeyed three of his first five holes on Sunday and that was the end of that. He rallied to finish tied seventh, but it was a disappointing outcome after such a spectacular start.
Finland's Sami Valimaki, who had trailed by six in a tie for 15th after round one, shot the equal lowest round of the day around the Seaside Course at Sea Island on Friday, an eight-under-par 62, to sit two off the lead in a tie for fourth.
As highlighted in the In-Play Blog, I backed Valimaki at 10/111.00 at halfway and after solid 65 on Saturday, he went into round four leading by two and trading at what looked a generous enough 2.6613/8.
A 12-foot par save at the first and a tap in birdie at the second set the tone and the Finn was never headed after that.
Dave Tindall's 50/151.00 each way fancy, Max McGreevy, holed a birdie putt on the 18th hole from almost 30 feet to draw alongside Valimaki but only briefly.
Valimaki made a straightforward two-putt birdie at the par five 15th to edge back ahead but McGreevy hit a low of 2.829/5 when it looked like Valimaki was going to drop a shot at the par four 16th.
An overly safe drive led to a missed green and after a lengthy putt up the steep slope to the right of the green, Valimaki drained his par save from just under 20 feet to maintain his advantage.
A brilliant tee-shot and a two-putt par followed at the par three 17th and the well-backed pre-event 55.054/1 chance sealed the deal with a simple par four at the last.
Valimaki ticked plenty of trend's boxes so the fact that he was backed in from Monday's opening show of 75.074/1 made sense.
At 27, he was the seventh winner in-a-row to be aged at 30 or below and he was the fifth in-a-row to be getting off the mark on the PGA Tour.
That's a really strong trend now given Valimaki was the 11th first time winner in the last 13 years and he was also the fifth 54-hole leader or co-leader to win here in the last six years.
Tournament History
The Australian PGA Championship was first staged back in 1929.
The tournament was decided by a match play event for the top 16 finishers in the open element in the early years, but it's been a stroke play tournament since 1964.
The Australian PGA Championship has only featured as a con-sanctioned event on the DP World Tour since 2016.
The event was lost to the Covid pandemic in 2020 and 2021 and there were two editions in 2022, although the first (won by Jediah Morgan in January '22), wasn't co-sanctioned with the DP World Tour.
The Australian PGA Championship is a nomadic event, but it's been staged in Queensland since 2000, and the last four renewals have all been staged at this year's venue - the Royal Queensland Golf Club in Brisbane.
Venue
Royal Queensland Golf Club, Eagle Farm, Brisbane, Queensland.
Course Details
7,085 yards, par 71
Scoring average in 2023 - 70.86
Originally designed by Carnegie Clark, the Royal Queensland Golf Club opened in 1920, but the course used this week was designed by Mike Clayton as recently as 2007.
Located on the north bank of the Brisbane River, it's a largely flat course with wide fairways, little rough and an abundance of strategically positioned bunkers which have been described as being 'a significant part of its defence'.
The front nine winds around the grounds in a clockwise fashion and the back nine sits inside the front nine. Water is only in play on four holes.
The three hardest holes last year were all on the back nine (10, 14 and 13) and the front nine averaged almost a stroke easier than the back.
Weather Forecast
TV Coverage
Live on Sky Sports all four days, starting at 02:30 in the morning in the UK on Thursday.
Last Four Winners with Pre-event Exchange Prices
2022 (Jan) - Jediah Morgan -22 80.079/1
2022 (Nov) - Cameron Smith -14 4.57/2
2023 - Min Woo Lee -20 8.27/1
2024 - Elvis Smylie -14 70.069/1 (54 holes)
What do the stats at Royal Queensland tell us?
We've had four editions here in the last three years, but the stats are sporadic and not very helpful.
No numbers were issued at the first of the four editions, in January 2022, and stats were produced for only some of the players in the last three editions.
There were no stats for the winner in November 2022, Cam Smith, there were none for the players that finished third, fourth, fifth and sixth at the 2023 renewal, and there were no stats produced for the first four home last year. And what stats we do have don't help much either.
What limited evidence we have suggest that accuracy is marginally more important than distance off the tee, but there's really not much in it.
The four players to fill the places behind Smith in 2022 ranked fifth, ninth, third and 15th for Greens In Regulation and the first and second in 2023, Min Woo Lee and Rikuya Hoshino, ranked 14th and fourth for GIR.
Lee and Hoshino ranked seventh and first for Scrambling and the four placed players below Smith ranked third, 13th, eighth and 10th so getting up-and down has been fairly key but Putting Average has been the most important stat to date.
The four players inside the top five below Smith ranked first, fourth, sixth and eighth for PA and Lee and Hoshino ranked first and 10th.
Is There an Identikit Winner?
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.
Greg Norman, Wayne Grady and Scotland's Andrew Coltart, who now works for Sky Sports, all won the event a couple of times before the millennium, and we've seen as many as six men win the event multiple times this century.
Greg Chalmers and Adam Scott have won the Australian PGA Championship twice, Peter Lonard, Peter Senior and Cam Smith have all claimed the title three times and Robert Allenby won the event for a fourth time in 2009.
At only 22, last year's winner, Elvis Smylie, produced a bit of a shock but he was very nicely backed form around 120.0119/1 to 70.069/1.
Winner's Position and Exchange Price Prior to Final Round
2022 (Jan) - Jediah Morgan -led by nine 1.111/9
2022 (Nov) - Cameron Smith - led by three 1.364/11
2023 - Min Woo Lee - led by three 1.3130/100
2024 - Elvis Smylie - tied for the lead 6.411/2
In-Play Tactics
Allenby won his first and second Australian PGA titles here on the old layout in 2000 and 2001 and he was up with the pace throughout.
Having sat sixth after round one in 2000, he was tied for the lead at halfway and four clear after 54 holes and he won wire-to-wire the year after. And up with the pace has been the place to be in the four latest editions too.
Jediah Morgan was six clear at halfway in January 2021 (won by 11!), Smith sat 14th after round one and second at halfway before easing three clear with a round to go, and Lee was always up with the pace in 2023.
Having sat second, trailing by a stroke, after the first round, he led by one at halfway and by three through 54 holes, and although the event was reduced to three rounds because of bad weather, Smylie won wire-to-wire last year so we need to be concentrating on the frontrunners from early on.
Look no further than Lee
I was quite tempted by the rising English star, Marco Penge.
He started slowly last time out in the DP World Tour Championship, when still in with a chance of winning the Race to Dubai, but he wasn't well at the start of the week and could only finish tied for 22nd after starting the week with rounds of 74 and 70.
He missed the cut here 12 months ago but having won three times on the DP World Tour since, he's a completely different player.
It's difficult to gauge where Penge's ceiling is and it wouldn't be a surprise if he went on to win the first event of the new season but given the record of Australians, I'm reluctant to stray from the home contingent.
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.
Back Min Woo Lee