Queenstown, New Zealand, February 26: Olle Nordberg provides his insights from the front lines ahead of the storied New Zealand Open, which has attracted more than 30 Asian Tour champions and 13 past winners to its 100th edition this week. By Olle Nordberg. This week’s New Zealand Open in Queenstown may be a recent event on […]
Queenstown, New Zealand, February 26: Olle Nordberg provides his insights from the front lines ahead of the storied New Zealand Open, which has attracted more than 30 Asian Tour champions and 13 past winners to its 100th edition this week.
By Olle Nordberg.
This week’s New Zealand Open in Queenstown may be a recent event on the Asian Tour only making its first appearance on the schedule in 2018, but the event certainly has a long history going all the way back to 1907 and making this year the 100th edition of the championship.
This is the second consecutive event that is co-sanctioned with the ISPS HANDA PGA Tour of Australasia and like in 2018, it will be played over two courses, Millbrook Resort and The Hills, in a Pro-Am format.
These two courses have hosted the event since 2014 and have produced some spectacular scoring and champions such as Daniel Nisbet (2018), Michael Hendry (2017), Mathew Griffin (2016), Jordan Zunic (2015) and Dimitrios Papadatos (2014).
Especially the 2018 edition provided some fireworks in the last round, when Nisbet shot a final round of 62 (-9) to overtake Terry Pilkadaris and win the title by two shots with a total of 27 under par 258.
The defending champion Daniel Nisbet seems poised for a strong defence this week, coming off a six-shot win at last week’s Coca Cola QLD Championship in Toowoomba.
In addition to the recent past winners gathered at the New Zealand Open this week, other challengers to the title may come from the following players who are enjoying a recent run of good form:
- Ryan Fox – Winner of the ISPS Handa World Super 6 Perth two weeks ago, and the highest ranked player on the OWGR in the field this week at 68th place. By winning in Perth, he also managed to jump high enough on the OWGR to get into the WGC-Mexico Championship last week.
- Jazz Janewattananond – Continuing his strong play of late in Perth by finishing tied 13th overall after a tied ninth finish in the three round stroke play part of the event, and was very close to knocking out eventual winner Ryan Fox in the second round of the Sunday match play. In his last 10 events he has collected six top-10s, including a win at the 2019 SMBC Singapore Open, a second-place finish at the 2018 BNI Indonesian Masters and a third at the 2018 Queen’s Cup Hosted by Jaidee Foundation. Jazz is currently ranked number 78 on the OWGR.
- Brad Kennedy – Coming off a 10th place finish in Perth and a tied second at ISPS Handa Vic Open the previous week, the OWGR number 161 is in good form. Add to that that he finished tied second in this event in 2017 when he lost in a play-off to Michael Hendry, and tied fourth in 2015, it should make him a strong contender for the title.
- Jason Scrivener – Going back to the 2018 Hong Kong Open Scrivener has racked up four Top 10’s in his last six starts on the European Tour, and only missed out progressing to the Sunday match play in Perth by one shot. Currently number 125 on the OWGR.
- Panuphol Pittayarat – Last year’s Thailand Open champion is coming off three solid events in a row, with a tied 15th in Perth, tied ninth in Singapore and third in the season ending BNI Indonesian Masters last December. Coconut as he affectionally is known, is this week ranked number 193 on the OWGR.
Being played in a Pro-Am format, the course setup may be a bit kinder than the average Asian Tour event, with the rough not quite as thick and pin positions not as tricky as usual. For example, if we compare the GIR stat numbers from this event last year to the GIR average of the Top 100 Asian Tour players in 2018, we can see a noticeable difference.
In 2018, the players that made the cut at New Zealand Open had a GIR average of 81.1%, while the Top 100 Asian Tour players averaged 67.8% for the 2018 season. The highest-ranked player in this category last year was Paul Peterson with a 74.5% GIR. Based on this and Top 10 statistics from last year’s event, it may suggest that putting will be even more important than usual, and that the winner and top finishers might be found among the players that rank highly in this statistic.
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