Webex Players Series: WA golf stars dominate ahead of final round
Jordan Doull’s girlfriend, Kathryn Norris, put her own on course disappointment behind her to play an “instrumental” role in his remarkable win at the Webex Players Series. Here’s how it played out in WA.
How many men would voluntarily spend four straight days on the golf course with their girlfriend?
A course is usually a sanctuary for most average golfers. Often, it’s an escape from the pressure of their daily lives.
But for Western Australian Jordan Doull, it’s a workplace, and one he shares with fellow professional and girlfriend Kathryn Norris.
There can’t be many better feelings than winning your first tournament as a professional.
For Doull, he won it in lockstep with his partner for four straight days, who played alongside him on Thursday and Friday, then ditched her own clubs when she didn’t make the cut, and picked up Doull’s at The Players Series Perth tournament, which he won in a nerve-jangling two-hole play-off from Haydn Barron.
It was a fascinating dynamic.
Jack Nicklaus once said a caddie had three jobs: show up, keep up and shut up. But why would Doull want any of that from his own looper, who perhaps knows him better than he even knows himself?
“She’s been instrumental,” Doull said as he fought back tears when asked about Norris. “Having someone you can travel with and practise with all the time is a huge benefit. On the bag, she was keeping me as calm as possible. It’s a lot easier than having a regular guy or a mate.”
After 74 holes, Jordan Doull takes the title at the #WebexPlayersSeries Perth, hosted by @minjeegolf and @Minwoo27Lee! ðŸ‘🆠pic.twitter.com/rGqGBjvvxk
— PGA of Australia (@PGAofAustralia) January 12, 2025
On Sunday, their conversation was frequent, although not what you might expect.
“Most of it is just making up song lyrics,” Doull laughed. “We’ve been listening to [Chappell Roan’s] Pink Pony Club or [Luke Combs’] Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma a bit recently, so we’re just reciting those lyrics as we go around.
“We’re about to go away for a month, so we were talking about that too.”
When Doull went on a birdie blitz early in the day, Norris was there to bounce off him. When he missed a putt he thought he should make, she smiled and offered a few words of encouragement. As he inhaled deeply walking to the last tee with a two-stroke lead, she doggedly kept handing him a water bottle until he took a sip.
It might not have worked. Having looked unflappable all day, Doull flapped on the 72nd hole.
After a hold-up for several minutes in the fairway, he tried to nurse a fairway wood up near the green with his second on the par-five closer. It went right. He could have hit anywhere and it would have been fine, anywhere but right.
He stabbed out from under the trees back onto the green, but came from a different postcode with his first putt, which was way short. He ended up three putting for bogey, his first and only one for the day.
Behind, fellow sandgropers Haydn Barron and Kirsten Rudgeley started the hole two behind and probably thinking they were too far back. Barron made birdie, forcing a play-off no one saw coming. As Barron poured in his putt, a watching Doull’s head sunk. In the background, Norris marched straight back to the bag to get on with it.
After both players made pressure-packed putts for birdie on the first play-off hole, Doull avenged his WA PGA Championship play-off defeat last year with a 15-footer for birdie from off the green on the second extra hole to win.
Norris stood beside him and helped him read the putt.
“We sort of spoke about it and she said, ‘inside the pitch mark on the green’,” Doull recalled. “We knew if the ball was rolling inside that, it would be fine. It did a little bit more than I thought, but it was good.”
And so is his career, which is off and running, and started when he tore his ACL at 14 while playing soccer and started golf clinics for something to do.
Doull, 25, only turned professional in the last two years, after lamenting the state of his game after a college career in the United States. He decided to preach patience, and now it’s had a major reward.
Overnight leader Rudgeley (-16), seeking to become just the fourth woman to win an event of The Players Series on the Australasian tour, had a tough day on the greens and surrendered a two-shot lead to finish tied third with Anthony Quayle (68), albeit with a close shave for a hole-in-one on the driveable par-four 15th. She pulled the six foot eagle try and tapped in for birdie en route to a closing one-under 71.
There was always a good chance a woman would be celebrating on the last hole come Sunday.
For Doull, he was glad it was Norris.
RISING STAR REMAINS ON TOP AS WA DOMINATION CONTINUES
Like all good tournament hosts, Min Woo Lee strolled the fairways, a fresh-faced 26-year-old putting on an event with sister Minjee to help their peers get paid. Event hosts are usually elder statesmen such as Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods. Lee doesn’t do convention.
By the time he looked up at the leaderboard, he would have thought his tournament is in good hands. Or more specifically, he would have felt comfortable the majority of prize money was staying at home.
There’s not a more parochial group in Australia than those who live in the west, and that’s fair enough. They boast Australian golf’s most famous siblings, plus Hannah Green, supercoach Ritchie Smith, so they don’t really need any more reason to puff the chest out a bit more.
But here we are.
Consider this: going into the final round of The Players Series Perth event on Sunday, the latest stop of the PGA Tour of Australasia where men and women compete against each other, the top four on the leaderboard all have WA next to their name.
From 23-year-old Kirsten Rudgeley trying to beat the men for the first time to 47-year-old veteran Brett Rumford, whose short game is so good the likes of Adam Scott regularly seek his counsel, it’s odds-on the winner will emanate from WA.
And that’s not to discount the towering Haydn Barron, who’s bouncing back from a tough first full season on the DP World Tour, and Jordan Doull, who made worldwide headlines last month when he somehow got to nine-under during a round of the Victorian PGA Championship before a monumental collapse left him signing for even-par. He’s never felt more at home this week with girlfriend and fellow professional Kathryn Norris also in the field at Royal Fremantle.
At the moment, Rudgeley (-15) holds the aces as she tries to become the fourth woman to beat the men in an event of The Players Series, where golfers play off their respective tees and everything else is fair game.
Here’s a look at overnight co-leader @KRudgeley’s swing, thanks to @Webex by @Cisco.
— PGA of Australia (@PGAofAustralia) January 11, 2025
Tune in now on @FOXSportsAUS, available on @Foxtel and @kayosports. #WebexPlayersSeries | #TheChaseIsOnpic.twitter.com/YOoJzn0LWL
Her eagle on the 18th during the third day made it three straight rounds of five-under 67, opening up a two-shot lead from Barron (65) with Doull (64) and Rumford (66) a shot further back at 12-under. At one stage, six players shared the lead on Saturday.
Rudgeley would be a popular winner, but then so would Rumford, who said he’d done “zero” preparation for the event, and has even been coaching before and after his tee times earlier in the week.
So if not a WA winner, then who?
Queensland’s Anthony Quayle (-12) looms large, and if there is a golfing higher power, then he is due.
Quayle went down by only two shots in the Victorian PGA Championship despite inadvertently playing preferred lies in his first round when not permitted, costing him seven penalty strokes. It would be easy to think no one would begrudge him a deserved win here, but he’s got one small problem: he’s not from Western Australia.
Kerry Mountcastle (69) and second round co-leader Jake McLeod (71) are in a share of sixth at 11-under, four shots behind Rudgeley.
Great to have tournament host @Minwoo27Lee on course @RoyalFremantle this week, supporting the next generation.#WebexPlayersSeriespic.twitter.com/Aq9GAcVsKq
— PGA of Australia (@PGAofAustralia) January 11, 2025
‘MIND-BLOWING’: AUSSIE GOLFER TURNING HEADS WITH DARING TECHNIQUE
When Hannah Green became the first woman to win a co-ed 72-hole tournament on a main professional tour, she put down the clubs, did a shoey, and was then shoehorned onto media street for 24 hours to talk about breaking golf’s glass ceiling.
Really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise.
Green was already a major winner in women’s golf and one of the world’s best. Playing the ladies tees against Australian men’s tour pros, it would have been more of a surprise if she wasn’t contending at the end of the week, such is her immense talent.
Almost three years later and another Western Australian, Kirsten Rudgeley, is treading a path Green started.
Rudgeley doesn’t have the CV of Green yet, and nor should she, being considerably younger and in the formative years of her professional career.
But as a Ladies European Tour member who was 12th on last season’s order of merit, narrowly missing an LPGA card, she is one of the best credentialled players in the field for the dual gender Webex Players Series Perth event at Royal Fremantle, predominantly made up of journeymen.
Since Green, Sarah Jane Smith and Min A Yoon have also won Webex Players Series events. The premise is simple: men and women play from different tees but everything else is fair game.
Rudgeley (-10) is making a good fist of joining that list after posting a bogey-free five-under 67 in her second round on Friday to share the lead with Jake McLeod at the half-way point of the first Perth event, hosted by the city’s famous Lee siblings, Minjee and Min Woo.
“It’s amazing those two can do this event for us here,” Rudgeley said. “It’s obviously the first TPS we’ve had in Perth and it’s amazing for everyone. I’ve got family coming out and friends on the weekend.”
The 23-year-old feasted on Royal Fremantle’s four par-fives with birdies on each of them during her second round, which was played in tricky conditions for the afternoon wave.
“I took advantage of them,” said Rudgeley, the world No.166 on the women’s rankings. “I got it around and gave myself a chance to make birdie on the par-5s which was good.
“I think I hit a bad tee shot on them all today, so I haven’t had a chance [to reach the green in two]. [But] I’m leaving them in spots where you can make up-and-down from.
“I play in Europe and it’s windy all the time. I’m pretty used to it. I understand it now, which is always a bonus. I just hit the right shots with that wind and most of the time executed pretty well.”
McLeod, who shot a course record equalling nine-under 63 to be the first round leader, laboured a little more in the conditions on Friday en route to a one-under 71.
If it wasn’t for Robyn Choi’s late fadeout – she dropped a shot on each of her closing three holes – she would have been another woman at the top of the leaderboard after at one stage reaching 10-under for the tournament, before dropping back to a tie for sixth after posting a 69.
Gavin Fairfax (66), Zach Murray (67) and Kerry Mountcastle (70) are two shots behind Rudgeley and McLeod at eight-under.
AUSSIE GOLFER TURNS HEADS WITH DARING TECHNIQUE
The mind of a professional golfer is a weird and wonderful study.
There might only be a few, but you will see some players walk off the 18th green after five plus hours on the course during a tournament, and the first person they speak to is their sports psychologist. Not a coach, nor caddie, their girlfriend or a young fan, but instead it’s the shrink.
If being a jockey is the most dangerous sporting occupation on the planet where an ambulance follows you around at work, golf might be the craziest.
And if you’d managed to watch a young Australian professional on course in recent months and had to do a double take, you could be forgiven. Why the hell is he doing that?
Coffs Harbour’s Jack Pountney is not a household name like a Cameron Smith, Adam Scott or Min Woo Lee. But he’s trying something not even the best players in the world would consider: switching between playing left handed and right handed during a round.
It all started about seven years ago when Pountney was a teenager.
When he is driving the ball off the tee or playing with his irons into a green, Pountney is a left-handed golfer. But by the time he reaches the flat surface, he stands on the other side of the ball and putts as a right hander.
“A lot of [my playing partners] don’t pick it up until a few holes in,” Pountney laughs.
“They’re just like, ‘you putt right-handed?’ It can be mind-blowing for them, especially if they haven’t played with me before.”
In his own words, Pountney once had “head noise” putting as a teenager. His stroke felt out of rhythm, and with a bunch of mates who were right-handed, he started mucking around with their putters. It felt good, better than his own left-handed flat stick, and he thought he’d give it a try.
“It always rolled really well,” he says.
“I was like, ‘oh well, I’ll give it a go’. My coach said [too], ‘well, give it a go’. It wasn’t too uncomfortable really.
“The ball position at the start was probably a bit further back being used to having everything left. But it felt really good and I had my confidence again.
“Putting is huge and there’s a lot of confidence that goes into that. It doesn’t have to look too pretty, but confidence gets it in the hole. That was the main thing. And I’ve never really looked back.”
He’s not the first Australian golfer to use the method.
The country’s most famous leftie of the past generation, Nick O’Hern, switched to putting right-handed later in his career. His argument was, if he wrote with his right hand and threw a ball right handed, transferring shouldn’t be as brazen as it seems.
The same goes for Pountney, 26, who uses a reverse grip to a traditional right-handed putting style, placing his right hand on top. He’s often sizing up shots on the fringe of a green, where he alternates between a left-handed wedge and right-handed putter addressing the ball, before eventually deciding what fits best.
The method helped him to his best finish of the season in tied-fifth at the Gippsland Super 6 before Christmas, and this week he’s playing in the Webex Players Series Perth event hosted by the Lee siblings, Minjee and Min Woo, in the latest event on the PGA Tour of Australasia.
“If I tried to throw a ball right handed, it’s so much further and stronger,” the world No.2096 golfer says.
“My left is like a noodle.
“Some people see you do it and they might be battling [with their own game] and they give it a run. It’s not a really common thing, but just how I do it.”
How McLeod’s Christmas putting indulgence has paid dividends
A short festive season break working on his “disgraceful” putting propelled Jake McLeod to a course record-equalling opening round at the inaugural Webex Players Series event in Perth.
Queensland’s McLeod, whose biggest success to date was winning the 2018 NSW Open, turned back the clock with a nine-under 63 at Royal Fremantle Golf Club, matching the previous best mark at the home course of the famous Lee siblings, Minjee and Min Woo.
It was a welcome return to form for McLeod, who has slipped outside the world’s top 1000 players after reaching a high of 138 in 2019.
And it was also a long way from missing six straight cuts earlier this year either side of the PGA of Australasia Tour seasons.
The 30-year-old rode seven birdies and an eagle to be the best of the morning wave, setting the pace from Gippsland Super 6 champion Ben Henkel, whose blistering form continues after reverting to wearing a glove for the first time in years before Christmas.
But McLeod stole the early headlines as he tries to recapture the form which saw him a former winner of the Australasian order of merit.
“I was trying to get it to double digits,” he said after recording a previous career best of 11-under at the Victorian Open. “I was thinking about it. I knew I got it to nine with three to go and thought, ‘come on, get one more’.
“I did some work with my coach the last week. I was hitting it well at the end of last year. But my putting was disgraceful really. They all seemed to go in [on Thursday] which was a good sign.
“I had a look at the forecast and I knew we were going to have a good morning. I practised [Wednesday] afternoon and Tuesday afternoon when we got in and it was blowing an absolute gale. It makes the golf course a lot tougher, but [Thursday] morning was as simple as it will get all week I’d imagine.”
Henkel put himself in early contention for a second straight tour win more than five years after a serious car accident threatened to derail his career.
The Victorian made a hot start at Royal Fremantle with six birdies and an eagle on his opening 11 holes, but will rue two slip-ups on his final three holes to finish with a six-under 66. New Zealand’s Kerry Mountcastle signed for the same score to share second.
LPGA Tour-bound Cassie Porter joined Kirsten Rudgeley as the best of the women teeing it up against the men.
Porter was using a new set of irons in competition for the first time as she fine tunes her game before heading to play on the United States’ lucrative tour full time.
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“This time last week I had no idea how far they were going, so it’s a bit wild,” said Porter. “This course requires a lot of respect. We just gave it respect and it was kind to us.”
James Marchesani was also at five-under after a hot start which included five birdies and an eagle on his outward nine before blotting his card with two bogeys on his inward nine.
Minjee and Min Woo Lee are hosting the Webex Players Series Perth event with both playing in the Pro-Am on Wednesday before turning their focus to a return to competitive golf overseas in coming weeks.
Originally published as Webex Players Series: WA golf stars dominate ahead of final round
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