Great week for Australasian golfers worldwide
Karl Vilips – secures his first PGA Tour victory – file image USGA
It has been a sensational weekend for Australasian golfers in several golfing arenas.
On Sunday, Minjee Lee finished runner-up and Cassie Porter 4th in an LPGA Tour event on the island of Hainan off Southern China.
In New Zealand a local, Tyler Hodge, won the New Zealand PGA Championship to record his first PGA Tour of Australasia victory.
In Hong Kong, Lucas Herbert finished 4th behind Sergio Garcia in a LIV Golf event.
Then this morning things got even better.
In Puerto Rico the highly talented US based West Australian, Karl Vilips, won the PGA Tour’s Puerto Rico Open, the alternative event to the Arnold Palmer Championship but a great boost for Vilips who gained access to the PGA Tour via the Korn Ferry Tour last year.
Vilips, a former student at Stanford University, won by three and earned US$720,000 in just his third PGA Tour event as a cardholder, having made the cut in each of his previous two starts in Mexico and Florida.
“Trying to soak it all in at the moment,” said Vilips. “I don’t know, just thinking ahead to next week already, PLAYERS, I’m getting ready for it. It’s been a bit busy, but I’m sure when I’m in my hotel room later I’ll be thinking about something
“Last night that was about the only thing on my mind was everything that comes with a victory here. I had a hard time getting to sleep. But on the course it was just staying in the present, doing what I can do and I think I did a really good job of that because it is tough to not think about everything. Once I hit that wedge close on 18, those thoughts definitely started flowing in my head.
“If you told me less than a year ago when I was at Stanford that I would be a PGA TOUR winner at this point in my career, I think I would be a little surprised. But I think I’ve just been so true to the process and everything that my team has me doing that it shouldn’t be a surprise when I make the putt on the last hole. But we’ve got to keep moving forward and try to win at an even higher level.”
At the Arnold Palmer Championship, Jason Day, a former winner of the event, finished in 8th place after a stuttering finish but after returning to his coach of earlier years, Colin Swatton, earlier this year he will no doubt be pleased with his progress ahead of next week’s Players Championship, yet another event he has won previously.
“We (Day and Swatton) stopped working together and then it was just trading texts on and off, said Day over the weekend. “He was going on with his own life, and obviously I was trying to play competitive golf. We’ve got a lot of history together, so it’s nice to be able to pull the old-school team back.
“I’ve got Jason Goldsmith who is my performance coach, we got to No. 1 together. Cole, we got to No. 1 together. I got a new trainer, an old trainer from my injury days. Luke is doing a good job on the bag. So I feel like I got a really solid team, everyone’s kind of pulling in the right direction, which is great.
“That’s kind of the hardest thing is you, when you’re the leader of the team, you got to kind of nudge everyone where you want ’em to go. Everyone has to kind of pull their equal weight, and then if it doesn’t work out then you got to look elsewhere. So it’s nice to be able to have a team that really cares about what I’m trying to achieve out on the golf course.”
And then to top it all off, New Zealand’s Steve Alker produced a final round of 66 and eventually won a playoff over Jason Caron at the Colourguard Classic in Tucson in Arizona to win his 9th PGA Tour Champions title and move to #2 on the Charl Schwab Cup list for the season.
Despite winning the Charl Schwab Cup last season, this week’s win was the first for Alker since January last year, highlighting his amazing consistency in the period since. In fact, there had been six runner-up finishes since his last win.
“Yeah, I mean, just got to keep knocking on the door, Cookie, said Alker when asked about the frustration of not winning. “You know how it is, you just grind away. I’ve been top-10s, top-5s, just been in the hunt, so it’s just being patient, just working hard on the body this pre-season.”
Australian Greg Chalmers led into the final round and eventually finished tied for 3rd with fellow Australian Rod Pampling.
