Mike Hendry, Daniel Hillier and a host of top New Zealand golfers are preparing for the second week of the re-adjusted PGA Tour of Australasia with The Players Series event hosted by Geoff Ogilvy at the Rosebud Country Club in Victoria.
The tournament has a prize money pool of $150,000 AUD and will see men and women compete in the same field for the same prize purse using scaled tees, proclaimed as a ‘World First’ tournament concept, although the entire 2020 Jennian Homes Charles Tour was played under the same format in New Zealand.
The event will also see younger amateurs and juniors tee off with pros across the four days, giving the youngsters invaluable experience with their much more experience round partners.
PGA of Australia tournament officials have gone to great lengths to set the course up in such a way that male and female players will be hitting the same clubs into greens, albeit from different positions on the fairway.
Kiwi players included in the tournament include Hendry, Hillier, Campbell Rawson, James Anstiss, Luke Brown and Sung Jin Yeo.
2006 US Open Champion and host of the event in Rosebud Geoff Ogilvy said they came to him with the concept of this event a few years ago and he’s excited to see it come to fruition.
“Yeah its really really cool, when they suggested this to me a couple of years ago I thought it was a really cool concept,” Ogilvy said.
“The Vic Open has done really well, but to join a couple more things that are really important to get the juniors to play with the pros, all the elite golfers in Australia altogether to kind of learn from each other and the guys and the girls in the same field is kinda cool.
“It will be interesting to see how it works out the way the tees are and everything but I think once we get the balance right it will add a whole other layer of complexity to it and it gives everyone in the field a better experience.”
Other top players in the field include Ogilvy, Marcus Fraser and the last two NZ Open Champions Zach Murray and Brad Kennedy.
Players will tee off on Thursday morning.
