Telfer's Thoughts

Big bucks were flowing the way of 5 Kiwi male golfers over the weekend - Ryan Fox, Steve Alker, Daniel Hillier, Kazuma Kobori and Sam Jones pocketed between them in excess of NZ$500,000 for their respective week’s work.

We had 3 top 12 finishes, a 25th and a tie for 43rd.

The big surprise was 22-year-old Kazuma Kobori - our newest and youngest touring pro.

Not yet a full-time member of the DP World Tour but has been picking up the odd sponsor’s invite, including one last week at the rich Alfred Dunhill Championship in Scotland. This event attracted one of the strongest fields of the year anywhere outside of the Majors. Included in the field were a handful of LIV notables such as John Rahm, Patrick Reed and Brooks Koepka.

However, one of the best performances from anyone over the final 36 holes came from young Kobori, arguably the youngest and least experienced player in the 168 strong field. After just sneaking into the field for the weekend, posting two opening rounds of 70 and with the pressure off his shoulders, he cut loose. And boy did he cut loose with rounds of 67 and a final round of 65, 7 under par. Playing the weekend 12 under par saw him catapult up the leaderboard from 54th to 12th place and with it a cheque of over NZ$110,000.

Kazuma has earned a full playing card for the 2025 DP World Tour thanks to his remarkable run of success on the Australian PGA Tour last season.

Meanwhile in Jackson, Mississippi, Ryan Fox was trying to nail down a high finish in the Sanderson Farms Championship in order to secure his full playing rights on the 2025 USPGA Tour and by the look of it he may have hit that goal with an 11th place finish which will go a long way to seeing him finishing comfortably inside the top 125, the cut-off mark for automatic playing rights next year.

Foxy, with his hip problems of late apparently taken care of for the moment, shot 4 rounds in the 60’s. That should just about guarantee him his card for next year. His new ranking after this week’s showing has him ranked just inside the top 100. He is intending to play a couple of more tournaments while he’s in the States which he now can do with a lot of the pressure off him.

Back on the DP World Tour Kiwi golfer Daniel Hiller found himself in a not dissimilar situation to that of Ryan Fox on the other side of the Atlantic.

Daniel needed a reasonably high finish as well to take the pressure off him as he tries to secure his playing card on the DP World Tour for 2025. Well, he too rose to the challenge in the best possible way, shooting an opening round of 63, 9 under the card, at the Alfred Dunhill Championship being played in Scotland on 3 different courses including St Andrews. By week’s end he’d done enough to finish in a tie for 25th placed at 14 under the card and he now sits 93rd on the ranking list, well inside the cut-off position for next year of 115th.

Sam Jones still has work to do to secure his playing card for next year but another solid week and a tie for 43rd has seen him move up a few places to 137th on the playing list but still needs to make up another 22 places at least to guarantee a place on the DP World Tour next year.

Finally to Steve Alker and another good showing on the USPGA Champions Tour in Jacksonville, Florida, where he finished in a tie for 10th place, enough to see him remain second place for the season finale Schwab Cup.