Brett Coletta survives 4 hole playoff for first professional victory
Brett Coletta – image Australian Golf Media
Victorian 26 year old, Brett Coletta, survived a four hole playoff against NSW golfer, Lincoln Tighe, to win his second PGA Tour of Australasia event but his first as a professional at the TPS Hunter Valley event at Cypress Lakes in Pokolbin in the Hunter Valley region.
Coletta set out on his final round more than 3 hours ahead of the final group but reeled off a round of 61 to set the clubhouse mark at 11 under and waited as both Tighe and Jack Munro fought out what would ultimately be the right to join Coletta in the playoff.
With a par at his final hole Tighe had outlasted the luckless Munro and so it was to what would ultimately be a four hole playoff.
Coletta turned professional soon after winning the Queensland Open as an amateur in October of 2016, a week after he had suffered a dramatic loss to Curtis Luck at the Asia Pacific Amateur Championship in Korea.
Coletta was gutted by that loss as he had led Luck by seven shots heading into the final round, a win that week providing the victor a ticket to the 2017 Masters. It was not to be and that he bounced back so quickly at the Brisbane Golf Club so soon after told the story of a young man with not only a fine game, but a great constitution.
He managed to get a few starts by invite on the PGA Tour but he was unable to gain full status there and has spent the last few years plying his trade on the Korn Ferry Tour where in 2019 he went so close to gaining his PGA Tour rights. He finished just outside the crucial top 25 and he has been resigned to playing the Korn Ferry Tour and wherever else he could gain starts since.
His form in the current PGA Tour of Australasia season to date has been mixed missing the cut in the bigger events but putting together several top tens in lesser events but now with this victory he has moved to 8th on the PGA Tour of Australasia’s Order of Merit and the door has opened for Coletta to move further up the Order of Merit and gain access to international exemptions especially given that his victory earns him a start at next week’s New Zealand Open in Queenstown.
It was an agonising loss for Tighe who, like Coletta, was chasing an important win in his career. At this stage he does not have a start in New Zealand which may or may not change by Thursday next but there is clear evidence this powerful golfer’s game is on a huge upward curve having finished runner-up along with Coletta at the Victorian PGA Championship last year.
Tighe’s last and only win came at the 2014 NSW PGA Championship but he has suffered with injuries for much of his career. At his best he is an exciting player to watch and it is hoped he can build on what has been an encouraging start to 2023.
Munro finished alone in third positions and pocketed A$17,500 followed by Queenslander Douglas Klein in 4th place with Nick Flanagan and last week’s Korn Ferry Tour winner, Rhein Gibson sharing 5th place, just three shots from the playoff.
The leading female in the mixed gender event was Japan’s Yuna Takagi who tied for 12th.
