Lucas Herbert, the three-time DP World Tour winner, returns to defend the title he won at Murray Downs Golf and Country Club but faces a stern test not just from the Greg Norman-designed golf course, but a collection of hungry young professionals looking to further their Order of Merit aspirations.
\u00a0
Victorian Matias Sanchez was a first-time winner at Webex Players Series SA three weeks ago, Order of Merit leader Nathan Barbieri would love nothing more than his first win coming in his home state Open while Avondale Golf Club\u2019s Declan O\u2019Donovan makes his first start since turning professional following the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in Dubai.
\u00a0
Others have earned their place in the field with strong performances over the past six months.
\u00a0
Eighteen came through the Ford NSW Open Regional Qualifiers while Royal Sydney Golf Club PGA Associate Gavin Macpherson makes history as the first player to qualify via the NSW Virtual Open, a series of tournaments conducted solely at simulator centres across the state.
\u00a0
The Vintage has previously hosted the Ford NSW Open on four occasions from 2007-2010 where Jason Norris, Aaron Townsend, Leigh McKechnie and Peter O\u2019Malley tasted success.
\u00a0
There will be five hours of live coverage of both Round 3 and Round 4 from 12pm-5pm Saturday and Sunday on Fox Sports 503 and Kayo Sports.
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ford NSW Open
The Vintage Golf Club, Pokolbin, Hunter Valley
Defending champion: Lucas Herbert
Prizemoney: $800,000
\u00a0
Live scores: golf.com.au
Facebook: @PGATourAus
Instagram: @PGATourAus
X: @PGAofAustralia
\u00a0
TV Coverage
The Ford NSW Open is live on Fox Sports, available on Foxtel and Kayo.
*All times AEDT.
\u00a0
Round 3:\u00a0Saturday 12pm-5pm (Fox Sports 503\/Kayo)
Final Round:\u00a0Sunday 12pm-5pm (Fox Sports 503\/Kayo)
\u00a0
Tournament champions
2007\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jason Norris (The Vintage)
2008\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Aaron Townsend (The Vintage)
2009\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Leigh McKechnie (The Vintage)
2010\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Peter O’Malley (The Vintage)
2011\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Adam Crawford (Newcastle Golf Club)
2012\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not contested
2013\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Aron Price (Castle Hill Country Club)
2014\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Anthony Brown (Stonecutters Ridge Golf Club)
2015\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Ben Eccles (Stonecutters Ridge Golf Course)
2016\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Adam Blyth (Stonecutters Ridge Golf Club)
2017\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jason Scrivener (Twin Creeks Golf and CC)
2018\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jake McLeod (Twin Creeks Golf and CC)
2019\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Josh Younger (Twin Creeks Golf and CC)
2020\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Not contested
2021\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bryden Macpherson (Concord Golf Club)
2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Harrison Crowe (Concord Golf Club)
2023\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 David Micheluzzi (Rich River Golf Club, East Cse)
2024\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Lucas Herbert (Murray Downs G&CC)<\/p>\n
\n \u00a9 Golf Australia. All rights reserved.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lucas Herbert, the three-time DP World Tour winner, returns to defend the title he won at Murray Downs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-279362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}