The European Tour has moved from Malaysia down a bit to the west coast of Australia for an interesting new format called the ISPS Handa Super6.
Local lad, Brett Rumford and England's Mark Foster lead after the first round at -6 66.
It is not a really strong field, lot's of Aussies and players from India and Asia, and in amongst them all at -3 69 is Canada's Austin Connelly, 20 years young who qualified out of European Q School this year
Connelly has dual citizenship, his Dad and caddy, Bill, was born in Toronto and his family's roots are in the Maritimes. He was born in Irving Texas and at 5'8" and 160 pounds he has been a member of team Canada, playing in last year's Pan Am Games and after a stellar amateur career where he rose to Canada's #1 he decided to turn pro when he was 18. He played the Canadian Tour last year and finished 7th in the order of merit and has several starts on the PGA Tour.
He now has conditional status on the European Tour which will get him in 10-12 events and he also has full status on the Challenge Tour.
As for the new format, players are jostling to make it into Sunday's innovative new six-hole match play knockout. A regular cut will take place on Friday before the field is cut to 24 players for Sunday's match play finale in what is a first for the European Tour.
Here are the details from europeantour.com
- 156 players start for three rounds of strokeplay
- A standard cut to the leading 65 pros (and ties) will be made after 36 holes
- A further cut after 54 will reduce the field to 24 players for a final day of match play action
- If there are any ties for 24th position, a sudden-death play-off will determine the qualifiers
- Sunday will bring five rounds of six-hole match play battles – Super 6
- The top eight players after 54 holes will receive a bye into the second match play round
- Any ties for the top eight will be decided by a score count back based on the last 18, 9, 6, 3 and 1 holes
- In Super 6, any results not determined after six holes of match play will be decided by playing a 'Knockout Hole'
- This will be a purpose-built 93-yard par three using the 18th green at Lake Karrinyup
- Only one man will be left standing
Bryan Angus
- A standard cut to the leading 65 pros (and ties) will be made after 36 holes
- A further cut after 54 will reduce the field to 24 players for a final day of match play action
- If there are any ties for 24th position, a sudden-death play-off will determine the qualifiers
- Sunday will bring five rounds of six-hole match play battles – Super 6
- The top eight players after 54 holes will receive a bye into the second match play round
- Any ties for the top eight will be decided by a score count back based on the last 18, 9, 6, 3 and 1 holes
- In Super 6, any results not determined after six holes of match play will be decided by playing a 'Knockout Hole'
- This will be a purpose-built 93-yard par three using the 18th green at Lake Karrinyup
- Only one man will be left standing
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