Given it is the week of Christmas, without Tour sanctioning and with few of the usual bells and whistles of tournament golf, you would be forgiven for thinking the Sandbelt Invitational is something of a hit and giggle.
Yes, there are men and women of the paid and unpaid playing variety competing with learning a high priority and informality key.
However, if you watched Cam Davis take an early step and little fist bump when holing a 20 foot putt for birdie on Tuesday at Royal Melbourne you know that the field is here to play. And win.
That birdie was the middle of a trio of holes where the PGA Tour winner was locked in and closing his round par-birdie-birdie for a four-under 66 that started birdie-birdie-par-eagle and tournament total of 11-under, good for three shot lead over playing partner Momoka Kobori.
“Oh you always want to play great. You come to these sort of golf courses and any chance you get to play these ones is awesome, but to try and play well and to actually have some decent shots and scores going is a lot of fun,” Davis told Golf Australia magazine.
“I would love to play well for the next two days and give myself a real chance. I’m really enjoying myself and I am trying to treat these as a tournament round getting myself ready for next season.”
Part of that getting ready for next year means that Davis has his regular Tour caddie Andrew Tschudin on the bag, as well as performance coach Neale Smith walking the West Course at Royal Melbourne with him.
“Any little thing that I am working on, just trying to get a few more good reps in and see how that sets us up for the rest of this week,” he said.
“Schuids grew up here so a little bit of local knowledge. I’ve done some work, trying to implement that into my game and having everyone around to make sure I am doing that is good preparation.”
Tschudin might have grown up around the world famous Sandbelt, but there has been few play the West Course as consistently well as Davis, who owns the amateur course record of 63 alongside Tom Crow.
“I’ve had a few good rounds here,” the 27-year-old said with a wry smile. “It’s nice to have my name on the board here but today with the gusty winds this afternoon it was a good round to get in. Those three putts I made on 16, 17, 18 were a huge bonus, but anything under par today was a good score.”
“I would love to play well for the next two days and give myself a real chance. I’m really enjoying myself and I am trying to treat these as a tournament round getting myself ready for next season.” - Cam Davis.
Also under par and making her round over the closing trio was Kobori, whose bogey free 67 took her to eight-under for the event and a seven shot lead in the women’s pro division over Steph Bunque, while Belinda Ji from New South Wales leads the women’s amateur division by two shots at even par.
Whereas Davis was improving his score over the closing stretch, the 23-year-old was maintaining hers with consecutive pars.
Finding the bunker at the long par-3 16th she splashed out to 15 feet and drained the putt. Then on both 17 and 18 holed testing second putts after misjudging the first attempts.
“That was really cool. Coming down the last three holes a couple of them I didn’t quite get the distance right on the first putt and kind of had a five or six footer coming back, but definitely happy with my putting overall today. Managed to kind of hang on,” the New Zealander told this publication.
Making her round more impressive was the fact that Kobori had only ever played the front nine of the West Course, with her coach/caddie for the week Dom Azzopardi guiding her round like a first time visitor to the Old Course with a grizzled local looper on the bag.
“I was actually quite pleased. It turned out I had played the front nine before, I just had the holes mixed up,” she said after initially believing she hadn’t played a hole of the No.1 course in the country. “But just once before, and had no idea about the back nine. So I was actually really happy that I managed to get it around the way I did.”
Next best behind Kobori is amateur Jack Buchanan on five-under following a three-under 67 Tuesday to lead his division by two from Jye Pickin, while unheralded Tim Walker and Gippsland Super 6 winner Tom Power Horan are on four-under.
Power Horan struggled on day two but had the near highlight of the day when his second shot from the left trees on 18 hit the lip of the hole and finished tap-in distance for a three, while Walker has an advantage over the final two days having played his golf at Yarra Yarra (Wednesday’s venue) before entering a PGA apprenticeship that he is completing at Peninsula Kingswood (host on Thursday).
Those two courses won’t have the familiarity for Davis that he has enjoyed over the first 36 holes, with the New South Welshman yet to experience the Tom Doak renovated Yarra Yarra, while Kobori’s own experience of going toe-to-toe with the men could be the ace up her sleeve.
“I mean I think it is kind of an overall experience. Definitely take something away just as an experience to kind of be in contention, the last couple of days and definitely take something from what I learned there,” she said when asked of her play-off loss to Aaron Pike at the TPS Hunter Valley early this year.
“It is just kind of putting myself more in that situation and getting used to it. It’s nice to be able to do that again. Hopefully this time I can make use of what I learned there.”
Related Articles
Driver off the deck delivers Davis Sandbelt Invitational
Garcia cleans up in LIV Hong Kong as Herbert flourishes
