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 Australia has always had its star with Greg Norman, but now the country is producing several solid players who are making an impact on the PGA Tour. Geoff Ogilvy’s victory at the U.S. Open followed on the heels of his Accenture Match Play Championship title at La Costa, where he was the last man standing among the 64 best players in the world. And he’s not alone among Aussies who have won titles this year. Stuart Appleby won the Mercedes Championship and the Shell Houston Open, Rod Pampling won the Bay Hill Invitational, and Aaron Baddeley won the Verizon Heritage. “Hopefully, Australians will win four majors in a row or something,” Ogilvy said at Winged Foot after his U.S. Open triumph. “Australian golf has been struggling the last two or three years. There’s [four] different guys who have won already this year. That’s pretty impressive. Hard to explain why it’s good at the moment.” The emergence of Australian golf has been a steady progression the past decade. Ogilvy, Appleby, Pampling, Adam Scott and Robert Allenby are multiple winners on the PGA Tour, and Scott has said his goal is to be the No. 1 player in golf. That’s exactly what Australian golf needs, Appleby said, since it was Norman’s rise to the top that put the country on the map. “The thing that we’ve sort of struggled with in Australian golf is America has the golden child in Tiger [Woods] right now, and without Tiger there would be a definite degree in drop off of excitement,” Appleby said. “It’s proven that Tiger can drive events. Greg Norman was our driver of events in years previous, and now we have the best quality of Australian players, the most depth we’ve ever had by far, no doubt about that, but we don’t have a Greg Norman.” Stephan Leaney, who hasn’t won yet on the PGA Tour, said even without a star, the country has made an impact. “We have a population of about 22 million and we have 25 guys playing on the Tour,” Leaney said. “We are certainly the biggest contingent outside of America. There are a lot of guys who can play that aren’t on this tour. We are a very strong nation of good golfers. For a country so small to have that many golfers is great.” While Ogilvy’s personality isn’t as swashblucking as Norman’s, he is the first Australian to win a major championship since Steve Elkington at the 1995 PGA Championship at Riviera Country Club. Appleby came close at the 2002 British Open, when he finished in a tie for second after losing out in a four-man playoff. Scott and Baddeley also have legitimate chances to win a major. The two have strong games and it could be a matter of needing more maturity before they make that move. Ogilvy has now made it into the major championship winner’s circle, and he thinks that’s a good thing, for not only Australia but other parts of the world as well. “I think it’s pretty balanced at the moment with the strength of golf everywhere,” he said. “I mean, the U.S. obviously has the two best players in the world at the moment, but Australia has a few sort of sneaking into the top 20. It’s pretty balanced at the moment. It’s good for the game, I think, when pretty much in the biggest tournaments in the world there’s a little part of everywhere that’s represented.” John Reger has been covering professional golf since 1995. If you have a question or comment, e-mail him at cascribe@aol.com. |
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