Week 3 Approach Shots: HSBC New Zealand PGA

text size

Mar. 4, 2009
By PGATOUR.COM Staff

HOME SWEET HOME: The Clearwater Golf Club, the only home this tournament has known, opened for play in 2001 and was designed by New Zealand's most-famous golfer, Bob Charles. The Carterton native who resides in Oxford is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and was the first lefthander to win a major championship when he captured the 1963 British Open.

Quick Facts

WHAT: Third of 29 Nationwide Tour events

WHEN: March 5-8

WHERE: Christchurch, New Zealand

COURSE: Clearwater GC

WHAT'S AT STAKE: $650,000 purse ($113,684 for winner)

KEY LINKS: Tee times | Leaderboard | Tournament page | "THE 25"

Among the headliners in this week's field are Australians Craig Parry and Peter O'Malley. Parry, a longtime PGA TOUR member and two-time winner in the United States, won his third PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit last year. O'Malley is looking for his third Nationwide Tour/PGA Tour of Australasia title at Clearwater, having won there in 2002 and 2005. O'Malley is coming off a strong performance at last week's Moonah Classic, where he fell by a stroke to winner Alistair Presnell.

PLAYER NOTES: Danny Lee, winner of the recent Johnnie Walker Classic, a PGA Tour of Australasia/European Tour event, returns to New Zealand to play his first Nationwide Tour event in his homeland after competing in the Moonah Classic in Australia, where he missed the cut. Lee, 18, is a resident of Rotorua on New Zealand's North Island. He immigrated with his parents to New Zealand at age 8 from South Korea. Lee is the first amateur to play in this tournament.

A number of Nationwide Tour rookies have made the long trip to Australia and New Zealand for the first time as Tour members seeking to get a good start on earning one of "THE 25" PGA TOUR cards available via the Nationwide Tour. Those first-year-players in the field are Jonas Blixt, Drew Laning, Major Manning, Dustin Risdon, Josh Teater, Martin Piller and Joseph Sykora. Risdon had the best finish of the group in the Tour's first event of the year in Panama, a tie for 10th. Piller had the best finish of the group in the second event of the year, the Moonah Classic, where he tied for eighth.

The last four tournaments have either gone to playoffs or been won by one stroke. Peter O'Malley defeated Steven Bowditch in a four-hole playoff in 2005, and Nicholas Thompson used one extra hole to defeat David Morland IV in 2007. Jim Rutledge defeated Jarrod Lyle and Brett Rumford by one stroke in 2006, and Darron Stiles outlasted David Smail by one in last year's rain-shortened affair.

This week's HSBC New Zealand PGA Championship will be the first two events this year in New Zealand. O'Malley, who has won this event twice in its first eight years on the Nationwide Tour, has a chance to become the first player in Nationwide Tour history to win the same event three times if he can pull off a victory this week.

Weather forecast for HSBC New Zealand PGA Championship

THURSDAY, Rd. 1	FRIDAY, Rd. 2	SATURDAY, Rd. 3	SUNDAY, Rd. 4
Mostly cloudy Temp: 67 high/58 low	Morning showers Temp: 72 high/50 low	Mostly sunny Temp: 68 high/60 low	Mostly sunny Temp: 67 high/54 low

DTN/Meteorlogix is the official weather provider of the PGA TOUR. For more information, click here

HSBC New Zealand PGA Championship snippets

	Welcome, Alistair: With his win at the Moonah Classic and the full Nationwide Tour membership that goes with it for the rest of '09 and '10, Alistair Presnell will soon be making his way to the United States in search of his PGA TOUR card.
	Short game champ: In case you missed it on Saturday's Moonah Classic telecast on GOLF CHANNEL, Australian Peter O'Malley holed a birdie putt on the par-4 16th at Moonah Links that was estimated to be between 100 and 120 feet and had 15 feet of break.
	New event: Next week, the Nationwide Tour stays on the South Island for the Michael Hill New Zealand Open at The Hills Golf Club in Queenstown, an addition to the '09 schedule.