ShareThisThe more anybody is around professional golf, the more impressive is the contribution that Australians have made to the win column.
Geoff Ogilvy, the 2006 U.S. Open champion, added to the record when he won the SBS Championship in Kapalua, Hawaii on Sunday. He also happened to win the PGA Tour's season-opener last year.
Greg Norman, of course, is the Australian who probably comes to most golf-watchers when they consider players from Down Under who have been big winners. Norman won the 1986 and 1993 Open Championships and some 90 other tournaments around the world. He tied for third in the 2003 Open, when he was already a senior golfer.
But Norman was only following a long line of Aussies who have ruled the game. Peter Thomson won five Opens between 1954 and 1965. David Graham won the 1979 PGA Championship and the 1981 U.S. Open. Wayne Grady won the 1990 PGA while Steve Elkington won the 1995 PGA. Ian Baker-Finch won the 1991 Open. Adam Scott has won six PGA Tour events.
And let's not forget Kel Nagle, who won the 1964 Canadian Open, a very significant event in those days. Who finished second to Nagle? None other than Arnold Palmer.
Nagle is hardly the only Aussie to have won the Canadian Open. Norman won it twice. Nathan Green will be the defending champion when the RBC Canadian Open goes at Toronto's St. George's Golf and Country Club next July.
Aussie women have also been champions. Jan Stephenson won the 1981 du Maurier Classic in Montreal, and it was then a major. She also won two more majors, the 1982 LPGA Championship and the 1983 U.S. Women's Open. Karrie Webb has won seven majors, including the 1999 du Maurier.
With all these wins, it's odd that an Australian has never won the Masters. Norman took a six-shot lead into the last round of the 1996 Masters, but shot 78 while England's Nick Faldo shot 67 to win by five.
Maybe an Aussie will win this year's Masters. Maybe it will be Ogilvy, who is already a major champion. Or maybe the talented Robert Allenby will come on take his first major. Allenby, 38, has won four PGA Tour events but none since 2001. However, he won the Nedbank Golf Challenge in South Africa last month and then took the Australian PGA Championship the next week.
The season has only started, and an Australian has won the first event. Aussies may well win more tournaments this year, including majors.
After all, they have shown that they can.
(Contact Lorne Rubenstein at rube(at)sympatico.org)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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