The Australian Masters will be played from the 27th – 30th November Huntingdale Golf Club in Melbourne. This year the Masters celebrates its 30th anniversary and a number of the world’s leading players will be there. The Australian Masters is the also the third event of the Euro PGA Tour’s 2009 Race to Dubai.
Although last year’s winner, Aaron Baddeley won’t be there, many leading players will be in attendance, including bookies favorite Robert Allenby. Allenby is a two-time Masters champion, who has stated he wants to repeat his exceptional 2005 effort when he won the Australian Masters, Australian Open and the Australian PGA.
Other notables in attendance will be Stuart Appleby , Tim Clark, Oliver Wilson, Phillip Archer , Daniel Chopra (last year’s runner-up), Nathan Green, Peter Lonard, Rod Pampling, John Senden, Simon Khan and crowd favorite – John Daly.
Another invitee is 24 year old Colombian, Manny Villegas, who is the brother of US PGA star, Camilo. Manny was an Academic All-American Scholar while attending the University of Florida and turned Professional earlier this year winning the 2008 Colombian Open.
Crowd favorite John Daly has already attracted attention. Last week the two time Major Champion recorded a flawless eight under par round of 62 in the final round of the Hong Kong Open to finish tied at 17th. Daly’s final round score equaled his his lowest round in a Tour event.
In today’s Pro-Am, Daly scored 8 birdies but at the post match media conference, he wasn’t keen to buy into comments by Stuart Appleby that Daly’s life was akin to a train wreck. Â Brushing aside those comparisons Daly said he wants to let his golf do the talking. He has set sights on getting back into top 50 of the world’s golfers. Trying to rebuild a career marred by injury and controversy, Daly has decided to play the European Tour all of next year.
Be sure to get your daily reports of the action and behind the scenes controversy, of the Australian Masters right here at THP.
Cheers Mate
Brad P.
if Daly played in the PGA in ’09, how many events could he actually play? ( i know, tough to guess which sponsors would invite him)
In his media interview after the Pro-Am, Daly reflected that 2003 to 2005 were his most consistent years on the US PGA Tour and said he would love to get back there.
Daly admitted, however, that he decided back in April or May to play the upcoming European Tour, not because of the inaugural “Race to Dubai” but because not having a full exemption for the US PGA Tour didn’t suit his game.
Daly said, “Our Tour is awesome but it is tough for me because I am getting on exemption here and there and having a week or two off. With my golf game, I’ve got to play at least two, three, four, five weeks in a row to get anything out of it. I can’t go in there in one week and take two weeks off. Any tournament I have won, anywhere around the world, it has been three or four weeks that I have played to get a rhythm going and get some confidence in my game. I can’t do what Tiger does. He’ll play one tournament and take four weeks off. He’ll win. It is amazing how he does it. But it is to each his own. I’m better off not being as fresh as Tiger is every week.”