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After the dust has settled on the 2006 Cadbury Schweppes Australian PGA
Championship, the PGA of Australia is delighted to announce not only did
record crowds flock to the Hyatt Regency Coolum to watch Australia’s best
golfers in action but a number of other records were re-written in one of
the most successful Australian PGA Championships ever staged.
The final total crowd attendance for the four day event was 45,600, the
largest crowd attendance in any tournament over the 2006 Australasian
summer of golf and a record for the PGA Championship in Coolum. The
increase in numbers equated to a 24 percent growth from the previous year.
Television ratings also improved considerably in 2006 with an outstanding
peak audience of 775,343 tuning into Channel Seven’s Sunday telecast to
watch the nail-biting playoff between Nick O’Hern and Peter Lonard.
The PGA would again like to congratulate Nick O’Hern on his fantastic win,
in what was an exciting end to the 2006 Australasian golf season. Not only
did O’Hern and Lonard finish on the lowest winning score of any PGA
Championship in its 101 year history at 22-under par, but their four-hole
playoff is also thought to be a record for the PGA Championship.
Nick’s world golf ranking also improved 13 places from 35 to a career best
of 22 courtesy of the win, which also received the highest number of world
ranking points (17) of any of the recent Australasian Tour events, another
record set by the PGA Championship and testament to the quality field that
assembled for this year’s event.
In winning the 2006 Cadbury Schweppes Australian PGA Championship, Nick
will also gain an automatic start in the Bridgestone Invitational, which is
one of four World Golf Matchplay events held under the auspices of the
International Federation of PGA Tours, alongside the Accenture Matchplay
Championship, the American Express Championship and the World Cup. This
year will be the fifth time that the winner of the Australian PGA
Championship will have the chance to tee it up in the event, to be held in
2007 at the Firestone Country Club, Akron, Ohio from 30 July to 5 August.
The top 10 players on the final leaderboard of the 2006 Cadbury Schweppes
Australian PGA Championship were:
Pos. - Par + Player Reps. Rd 1 Rd 2 Rd 3 Rd 4 Prizemoney
1 -22 Nick O'Hern WA 66 69 63 68 216,000.00
2 -22 Peter Lonard NSW 68 65 65 68 122,400.00
3 -19 Wade Ormsby SA 68 66 68 67 81,000.00
4 -18 Paul Gow NSW 69 65 69 67 57,600.00
5 -16 Peter O'Malley NSW 66 69 66 71 48,000.00
6 -15 David Smail NZL 69 67 68 69 43,200.00
7 -14 Nathan Green NSW 70 64 71 69 38,400.00
8 -13 Michael Wright Qld 68 68 72 67 30,900.00
Stuart Appleby Vic 67 71 70 67
James Nitties NSW 64 74 68 69
Geoff Ogilvy Vic 68 71 67 69
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