As is always the case, one DP World Tour season finishes and another starts barely a week later when the Australian PGA Championship opens up the 2025 campaign with players heading to Brisbane to look to get off to a quick start.
Min Woo Lee did exactly that when he took this title down a year ago and he will be back in his homeland looking to make a successful defence of the crown, but as golf slowly starts to come back together a decent field will be out to stop him.
Recent Winners
2024 – Min Woo Lee
2023 – Cam Smith
2020 – Adam Scott
2019 – Cam Smith
2018 – Cam Smith
2017 – Harold Varner III
2016 – Nathan Holman
The Course
We are at the Royal Brisbane Golf Club in Brisbane this week. This will be the third time this tournament has been staged at this venue and it is a par 71 which measures 7,085 yards. 14 under and 20 under have been the winning scores here and the more players get an understanding for how the track plays you would imagine the scoring will only get lower, especially if there is little wind to act as a defence for the course.
The course itself is one with wide open fairways and little in the way of rough so the test on this track is to stay out of the strategically placed bunkers and fire into the greens and use your touch to score well. Conditions in this part of the world are usually firm and very fast and there is nothing to suggest that will be any different this week. Wind is always in play on the Australian tracks so that is something to bear in mind.
The Field
This might be the first event of the new season but that doesn’t mean that the field is a bad one. We actually have six players in the top 100 in the world rankings and they are headed by Jason Day who makes a rare appearance on the DP World Tour. The defending champion Min Woo Lee and local lad Cam Davis are two more while the European trio of Victor Perez, Jordan Smith and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen complete the group of players in the top 100 in the world here.
Cameron Smith has won this event three times in recent times and had he not gone off to the LIV Tour he would also have been in the top 100 in the world heading into the week. Other notables in the field include the Australian pair of Lucas Herbert and Marc Leishman while Yannik Paul will aim to get another season off to a positive start. Daniel Hillier, Jason Scrivener and David Micheluzzi are others who will be looking to impress on home soil.
Market Leaders
Min Woo Lee is the favourite for the tournament on the best prices this week. The defending champion is generally a 15/2 shot to keep hold of the crown that he won a year ago. He was fourth here the year before so course form is well and truly in the book for him. He arrives at this tournament off the back of a pair of top 25 finishes in the last two events of last term but that is probably less than what would have been expected of him. He looks a worthy favourite but defending champions never interest me.
Cameron Smith is slightly bigger at 8/1 to get his hands on this title once again. He missed the cut when defending the title last year but his record in this event is as good as anything and conditions will suit him perfectly. Smith has gone T3-T2 on the PGA Tour of Australasia in the last few weeks so he is in decent form heading into an event where he is solid as a rock. Of the two market leaders I would rather be on Smith but the price doesn’t really get my juices flowing.
Jason Day will tee it up as a 10/1 shot to win the tournament this week. He is the highest ranked player in the field although that does need to be tempered by the fact that Smith and Marc Leishman would probably be higher were they not on the LIV Golf circuit. Day showed enough on the PGA Tour in 2024 to suggest that he should be a cut above most of these in the field and if he can find his putting early on this week he could go well. This is his competitive debut here which might be a negative.
Lucas Herbert is the next player in the betting this week. The Australian graduated from the DP World Tour a few years ago so we know that he is more than capable of taking down an event of this kind. He is 12/1 to win this tournament and he generally goes well on firm and fast tracks where the breeze sorts the men out from the boys so he is definitely someone to keep in mind this week. He was seventh here last year too.
Main Bet
Cameron Davis has finished T7 in both seasons of the tournament on this course and when you consider he has had some good campaigns on the PGA Tour since that run started and has played in the Presidents Cup and everything else he is entitled to be even closer to the top of the leaderboard this time around than he has been in the past. There is a real select list at the top of the betting market and at 18/1 he might well be the best value of those runners.
He is very solid when it comes to firm and fast tracks, can get it out there off the tee which will allow him to set up scoring opportunities and having played both years here he should have even more of an understanding of where the prime spots to score from on this track are. Davis won on the PGA Tour as recently as June and he was in the top five of a FedEx playoff event in August. That equates to a high level of form for this level and as such he is my sole main bet here.
Outsiders
I’ll play a couple of outsiders who have won recently on the PGA Tour of Australasia. The first of those is Elvis Smylie who won the WA Open last month. Smylie is performing very well in Australia at the minute. He has played 11 events in this part of the world in 2024 and has finished in the top 10 on eight occasions including a win and a pair of second places so that is decent form whoever you are. Smylie was T12 here a couple of years ago so we know that the course isn’t an issue for him and all things being equal he looks a big price.
Much further down the better I think there could be some value to be had in Jack Buchanan, the relatively new professional on the scene who has won twice on the PGA Tour of Australasia in the last month and who has played seven times on that circuit in 2024 with a couple of wins, two more top 10s and another two top 15 finishes so he is in decent touch. This is his tournament debut which is a bit of a negative but the price is reflective of that. Even then, the most experienced player in this event has only had two goes around here so it isn’t like there is oceans of history against him. I’ll pay to see how well he goes this week.
Tips
Back C.Davis to win Australian PGA Championship (e/w) for a 2/10 stake at 19.00 with Coral (1/5 1-6)
Back E.Smylie to win Australian PGA Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 61.00 with Coral (1/5 1-6)
Back J.Buchanan to win Australian PGA Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 176.00 with Paddy Power (1/5 1-6)
