A talented foursome of golfers including a 2023 DP World Tour winner, two PGA Tour winners and an American with a strong pedigree will be in the fields for the Aussie ‘majors’ in the Summer of Golf.
One of Australia’s most distinguished professionals from the past 20 years, Victoria’s Marc Leishman, and New Zealand’s Daniel Hillier, who triumphed at the British Masters this year, have locked in to play at both the Fortinet Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland (November 23-26) and the ISPS Handa Australian Open at The Australian and The Lakes golf clubs (November 30-December 3).
Joining the field for the Australian Open will be American duo Patrick Rodgers and Nick Hardy, who will be playing in the event for the first time.
Leishman, a six-time winner on the PGA Tour and former world No.12, is coming off a strong year in LIV Golf where he had three top-10s, highlighted by a second in Chicago and third in London, to finish 18th in the end-of-season standings. Although he has contended regularly in both major home events, the 40-year-old is still searching for his first Australian Open and Australian PGA title.
Hillier has been enjoying a breakout year on the DP World Tour, claiming the biggest win of his career at the Betfred British Masters hosted by Sir Nick Faldo which saw his Official World Ranking improve from 265th to a career-best 136th. He finished eagle-birdie-eagle-par at The Belfry to card a final-round 66 and had to wait for an hour for confirmation of his victory after an early start.
The two-time NZ Amateur champion has added in another three top-10 finishes to sit inside the top 30 on the 2022-2023 Race to Dubai standings.
A member of the PGA Tour since 2015, Rodgers has had five top 10s on the PGA Tour this year and narrowly missed out on the title at the Barracuda Championship where he lost a playoff to Akshay Bhatia. Rodgers has banked more than $US12 million in prizemoney and is currently 86th on the Official World Golf Ranking.
Hardy has had a great start to his PGA Tour career. After turning professional in 2018, he qualified for the tour in 2022 and captured the Zurich Classic of New Orleans teams event with fellow American Davis Riley in April this year. He is currently 52nd on the FedEx Cup standings.
The new additions for the Summer of Golf on the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia join a star-studded list of starters that includes leading Australians Cam Smith, Cam Davis, Adam Scott, Min Woo Lee, Lucas Herbert and defending Australian Open champion Adrian Meronk, of Poland.
