Defending champion Peter Lonard didn’t quite look the part yesterday, just a day ahead of the start of the Australian PGA Championship, hanging around the front of the clubhouse barefoot, in T-shirt and shorts.
“Just on my way back from the gym — honest,” Lonard said. “I’m not playing the pro-am till the afternoon, so I thought I’d better get serious about a workout.”
Lonard has won the Australian PGA title at Coolum three times in the last six years — sharing the championship with Australian countryman Jarrod Moseley in 2002 when darkness ended a playoff, in 2004 and last year, all of them on the par-72 Hyatt Regency resort course on Queensland state’s Sunshine Coast.
Why he plays so well here is a mystery to him, based mostly on his lack of preparation.
“It’s just a pretty relaxed sort of atmosphere,” Lonard said. “It’s a great place to stay and I usually have a few friends hanging around. I probably do everything wrong — I barely go to the gym, I eat pizza, drink beer and don’t really think much about golf. Maybe I should do that all year.”
The 41-year-old Lonard’s only win on the US PGA tour came at the 2005 MCI Heritage, and his best finish this year was a second at the Zurich Classic at New Orleans. Last year, a final-round 65 gave Lonard the win at Coolum, his ninth in Australia.
Lonard and a field that includes American John Daly, South African Tim Clark, Robert Allenby and last week’s Australian Masters champion Rod Pampling will find a vastly different course when play begins Thursday. Recent heavy rainfall has left the greens slower than usual, fairways with less run and the creeks full.
“With the rain we’ve had and the washouts, on four, five seven, eight, there is water right to the edge,” Pampling said. “You can be as aggressive as you like with this course, but be prepared to drop shots if you don’t hit the fairways.”
Allenby nearly joined his compatriot Adam Scott — who withdrew on Monday because of a surfing-related right knee injury — on the sidelines this week. Allenby, who was in contention at the Masters at Huntingdale last week until a late double-bogey — considered staying at home with his ailing mother, Sylvia, who has stopped all treatment for lung and kidney cancer.
“I didn’t think I was ready, mentally and emotionally, to play this week,” Allenby said yesterday. “But I spoke to my mom on Tuesday morning and she said: ‘I’d love you to win the tournament, but if you don’t, don’t worry about it.’”
“It’s a pretty tough time for all of us. We’re a close family, I’m the youngest of four and we’ve never had to go through this before,” he said. “We know what’s going to happen.”
Daly is making his first appearance at Coolum since 2002, when he threw his putter and ball into the pond on the 18th hole after his second round. He was later disqualified for not signing his scorecard.
The 42-year-old Daly missed the cut at last week’s Australian Masters but had a final-round 62 at the Hong Kong Open and tied for 17th the week before. He’s also playing next week’s Australian Open at Royal Sydney.
■NEDBANK CHALLENGE
AFP, SUN CITY, SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa’s Trevor Immelman makes his first appearance in his home country since winning the US Masters when he defends his title in the Nedbank Challenge limited field tournament at the Gary Player Country Club starting today.
Immelman, 28, won the event last year after receiving a late invitation. But less than two weeks later he had to withdraw from the South African Open because of a benign lung tumor which required surgery.
Four months later he held off Tiger Woods and the rest of the world’s top golfers at the Masters, holding or sharing the lead through all four rounds in brutally tough conditions.
He hasn’t had a win since and in recent magazine interviews admitted that he found it difficult to lift his game to the same level in the months that followed.
“There were many different things that I had to find time to deal with and learn how to handle them,” he told the South African edition of Golf Digest. “Probably for the first time in my life — and my career — I let golf slip down my priority list.”
Favorite for the US$1.2 million first prize is Spain’s Sergio Garcia, whose recent good form has lifted him to No. 2 in the world rankings.
Other strong contenders will include Henrik Stenson and Robert Karlsson, who combined to win the World Cup for Sweden in China on Sunday.
Stenson has finished second and fourth in two previous appearances at Sun City but world No. 6 Karlsson will be playing in the tournament for the first time. The 12 invited players are guaranteed a minimum of US$200,000 in prize money but this year’s field lacks some of the glamour of previous years, although eight of the world’s top 20 will be teeing up.
Hong Kong-based cricket team Hung See this weekend found success in their matches in Taiwan, even if none of the results went their way. Hung See played the Chairman’s XI on Saturday morning, the Daredevils that afternoon and PCCT yesterday, with all three home teams winning. The team for Chinese players at the Happy Valley-based Craigengower Cricket Club sends teams on tour to “spread the game of cricket.” This weekend was Hung See’s second trip to Taiwan after visiting Tainan in 2016. “The club has been traveling to all parts of the world since 1982 and the annual tradition continues [with the Taiwan
‘TOUGH TO BREATHE’: Tunisian three-time Grand Slam finalist Ons Jabeur suffered an asthma attack in her 7-5, 6-3 victory over Colombia’s Camila Osorio Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday cruised into the second round of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while Iga Swiatek romped into a third-round women’s singles showdown with Emma Raducanu and Taylor Fritz was just as emphatic in his pursuit of a maiden Grand Slam title. Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, the third seeds, defeated Slovakia’s Tereza Mihalikova and Olivia Nicholls of Britain 7-5, 6-2 in 90 minutes in Melbourne. Ostapenko and Hsieh — who won the women’s doubles and mixed doubles at the Australian Open last year — hit 25 winners and converted five of nine break points to set
HARD TO SAY GOODBYE: After Coco Gauff dispatched Belinda Bencic in the fourth round, she wrote ‘RIP TikTok USA’ and drew a broken heart on a television camera lens Defending champion Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan yesterday advanced to the quarter-finals of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while compatriot Chan Hao-ching on Saturday dominated her opponents in the second round, as world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka swept into the quarter-finals. Third seeds Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia toppled Hungary’s Timea Babos and Nicole Melichar-Martinez of the US 6-4, 6-3, hitting 24 winners and converting three of seven break points in 1 hour, 18 minutes at 1573 Arena. Although rivals at last year’s Australian Open — where Hsieh and Belgium’s Elise Mertens beat Ostapenko and Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok 6-1, 7-5
Dubbed a “motorway for cyclists” where avid amateurs can chase Tadej Pogacar up mountains teeming with the highest concentration of professional cyclists per square kilometer in the world, Spain’s Costa Blanca has forged a new reputation for itself in the past few years. Long known as the ideal summer destination for those in search of sun, sea and sand, the stretch of coast between Valencia and Alicante now has a winter vocation too. During the season break in December and January, the region experiences an invasion of cyclists. Star names such as three-time Tour de France winner Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe
RSS