The Australian PGA Championship is the first event on the DP World Tour\u2019s Opening Swing \u2013 the five-event series which takes place in the southern hemisphere between now and the end of the year, and marks the beginning of the 2026 Race to Dubai campaign.<\/p>\n
There is no shortage of major championship acumen with three major-winning players \u2013 Cameron Smith, Adam Scott and Geoff Ogilvy \u2013 set to tee it up, but nobody in the field has more major championship-winning experience than caddie Steve Williams, on the bag for 13 of Tiger Woods\u2019 15 major victories and Adam Scott\u2019s Masters win in 2013.<\/p>\n
Williams, now 62, has retired as a full-time caddie but is making a surprise return at Royal Queensland Golf Club as he\u2019s set to loop for Australian Anthony Quayle who is about to embark on a maiden DP World Tour campaign after earning his card via the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia\u2019s order of merit last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just incredibly fortunate that Steve was willing to come and help me out,\u201d Quale told Golf Digest Australia\u2019s Evin Priest.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a really cool experience. I think having somebody like Steve on your bag, you can\u2019t help but feel you\u2019ve maybe got a 15th club in the bag. There\u2019s a fair bit of experience and golf IQ that comes along with his career. Just really excited about the next couple weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams has no intention of returning to work full time, but will again be on Quayle\u2019s bag at next week\u2019s Australian Open where the tournament winner will earn berths at Royal Birkdale for the Open Championship in July and at Augusta National for the Masters in April.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably the way we\u2019ve approached the event,\u201d Quayle replied when asked how Williams\u2019 addition has been impactful.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s less time, more focus. Steve\u2019s introduced me to preparing and keeping it fun and light-hearted but really engaged at the same time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m listening to some of the stories and the experience and trying to draw on a bit of that as well. For me, there is an educational aspect and an aspirational aspect to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Williams himself wasn\u2019t overly familiar with Quayle\u2019s talents prior to this week, he likes what he sees and feels that, should he somehow manage to win next week\u2019s Australian Open, he could make a splash at Augusta National.<\/p>\n
William also feels that the addition of the Masters exemption has been huge for Australian golf and will help elevate the historic Australian Open back to its rightful place as one of the most highly sought of the national opens.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnthony\u2019s had a lot of experience and he\u2019s got the great opportunity this year of playing on the DP World Tour.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a first time experience for him and he\u2019s got the talent and ability. If I can pass on any information that might assist him in his journey, it\u2019s worth it. I don\u2019t look at it from the results standpoint these two weeks, it\u2019s about what he can get out of me and to encourage him to fulfil his potential.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cAnthony\u2019s got the game. \u201cIt\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve seen him play up close and that should he be fortunate enough to get a win at the Australian Open, he\u2019s got the game to play at Augusta.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody next week will be excited. It just brings another level to the Australian Open. It\u2019s a fantastic event in itself and if you look at that Stonehaven Cup through the years, and the great players who travelled the world and won the Australian Open, Gary Player, Greg Norman, Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus for example, and it was always considered along with the Canadian Open, outside of the majors, as one of the most important tournaments in golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that the Augusta is inviting the winner to play the Masters, it just gives an added edge a bit more importance to it. So, there\u2019ll be a lot of on the line next Sunday afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian PGA Championship is the first event on the DP World Tour\u2019s Opening Swing \u2013 the five-event…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,163411,755,85,175906],"class_list":{"0":"post-310012","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-australian-pga-championship","11":"tag-golf","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-steve-williams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310012","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=310012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}