The site of Crawford\u2019s first Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia victory in 2017, Royal Port Moresby was again kind to the 32-year-old who produced a bogey-free 7-under 65 to finish at 11-under par for a four-stroke win.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s funny, I had a conversation with my billet on the drive to the golf course and I said, \u2018If I can shoot 8 (under) today I\u2019m a really good chance,\u201d said Crawford.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd my mindset was really aggressive. I put a lot of pressure on myself, a lot of expectations on myself to be able to shoot a good number and try and win this thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s all I was thinking for the whole day. So really excited to be able to pull that off with that much pressure on myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teeing off more than an hour before the final group and five strokes adrift, Crawford clawed his way up the leaderboard with birdies at three, four and six before cashing in on the three consecutive par 5s around the turn.<\/p>\n
Round 4 takeaways<\/p>\n
Cory Crawford becomes first two-time winner of the Kumul Minerals PNG Open<\/p>\n
It is Crawford\u2019s third Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia title (2017 PNG Open, 2024 Vic PGA)<\/p>\n
Amelia Mehmet-Grohn wins first PNG Women\u2019s Open<\/p>\n
Six-under through 10 holes and with the likes of overnight leader Lincoln Tighe losing ground, Crawford was soon the outright leader. He made a seventh and final birdie at the par-3 13th followed by five nerveless pars to become the first two-time winner in tournament history.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst time, I had no idea what I was doing,\u201d Crawford said of his breakthrough win eight years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis time, it was really structured and means a lot more because so much has gone into it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels really good to win a golf tournament so hard, as everyone knows. To be able to win this, it\u2019s really special.<\/p>\n
Tighe (74) was one of five players to finish in a tie for second at 7-under along with 36-hole joint leader Will Florimo (73), Queenslander Jake McLeod (71), 2024 Gippsland Super 6 champion Ben Henkel (72) and recent PGA Membership Pathway Program graduate Zach Ion (67).<\/p>\n
While Crawford\u2019s final winning margin was decisive, the tournament was in the balance as the final groups entered the back nine.<\/p>\n
With McLeod making four straight birdies in the middle of his round and Henkel (72) turning in 3-under, just one shot separated the top five.<\/p>\n
Neither Tighe nor Henkel were able to birdie the par-5 10th at which point the Royal Port Moresby back nine applied its squeeze, drawing three bogeys from both players over the closing holes.<\/p>\n
Crawford didn\u2019t put a foot wrong in the final round, citing his birdie at the par-3 13th as crucial.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe birdie on 13 was probably the special one,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s a hole you typically wouldn\u2019t birdie.<\/p>\n
\u201cAround the front nine, you can make a lot of birdies, which I did, which was nice. But the one on 13 was unexpected. To get that one was really, really nice.\u201d<\/p>\n
A semi-finalist at the Gippsland Super 6 last season, Victorian Andre Lautee earned the third top-10 finish of his career courtesy of the day\u2019s best round, an 8-under 64 highlighted by birdies at eight and nine and an eagle at the par-5 10th.<\/p>\n
With the local crowd in full support, Papua New Guinea amateur Morgan Annato recorded his best finish in his national open, a tie for 34th.<\/p>\n
Sunday also saw the completion of the inaugural PNG Women\u2019s Open with Coffs Harbour\u2019s Amelia Mehmet-Grohn (73) finishing two strokes clear of Kathryn Norris (74) with Kristalle Blum third (72).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The site of Crawford\u2019s first Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia victory in 2017, Royal Port Moresby was again…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-75340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75340","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=75340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}