Mike Clayton turned pro in 1981 after winning the Australian Amateur and played the European and Australian tours for 15 years. He won the Timex Open in Europe and the Korean Open as well as six tournaments in Australia. He has written for the Melbourne Age and Golf Australia Magazine since 1991 and in 1995 began a golf design partnership with fellow Melburnians, John Sloan and Bruce Grant.

Today Clayton looks at the young Aussies who could compete and maybe win at Pinehurst No. 2 and finally claim a major title after nearly a decade dry spell.

- GolfObserver editors

Can the Aussie's Rule Pinehurst?
June 13, 2005

I have never seen Pinehurst No. 2, the masterpiece of Donald Ross, so I rely on the pictures, my memories of the 1999 television broadcast of Payne Stewart's Open and the word of Tom Doak who includes it amongst the very best courses in America.

It is sand-based much like our best courses, Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath where the greens are also surrounded by short grass, a wonderful hazard that conspires to sweep the misdirected approach far away from the flag.

That will be something of an encouragement for our players who have grown up with that form of golf.

Photo: © Steve Powell/Getty Images It's getting close to a quarter of a century since David Graham claimed the 1981 U.S. Open.

Kids grew up in Australia in the Graham era hearing horror stories (there was precious little golf on television) of long rough around greens and how tough it was to learn and play that gouging chunked chip shot from cabbage. It was seen as a reason for our relative lack of success in America and long grass is an especially prevalent (and obnoxious) hazard at almost all American Open courses.


The play of the young Australians has been something of note these past few years.

The first of the post-Greg Norman generation lead by Robert Allenby and then Stuart Appleby won events and encouraged the present generation to follow. It has become something of a procession and some have done brilliantly whilst others have really struggled.

Peter Lonard, Adam Scott and Geoff Ogilvy have followed Appleby into the winners circle this year and perhaps, we hope, one might just be the first since Steve Elkington, a decade ago, to win a major championship.

Norman was obviously a megastar but even he failed to win a big championship in America although he did succeed in losing more than a few he could have won.

Allenby has been the great hope ever since he was second, as a 19 year-old amateur, in the 1991 Australian Open. He has been a prolific winner all over the world with an amazing ten to zero record in playoffs.

Surprisingly, he has never really threatened in a major championship.

Photo: © Robert Cianflone/Getty Images The annual "Where's Greg Norman?" game was made easier with Norman just 50 miles away at the ground breaking for his Phillip Island Grand Prix Curcuit 2010 design on Phillip Island.

The caddies know the answer.

At the 2002 PGA at Oak Hill one of them said to me at the start of the week, "Watch him this week. He turns into a real beast at these things. " It was a reference to his intensity on the golf course and the caddies —some of them his ex's— will tell you it does him no favors.

He is too good a hitter not to win one but his time is running out .As a famous Australian football coach once told his players before the biggest match of the year, "it's later than you think."

Appleby won the Tournament of Champions in January then flew home to be with his wife and new baby. Not surprisingly he was distracted for weeks before his fleeting visit to the TPC and The Masters.

He was playing well at Augusta until he ran up an almost Weiskopf-type score on Sunday at the 12th.

A fortnight later Appleby was racing a Lamborghini around Tasmania in a week long car rally.

I admire his perspective but I'm not sure his form is near what it was in January although he showed more at Congressional, last week than he has in a few months.

Scott, second last week, beat the best field in the game when he won The Players Championship last year.

Photo: © Stephen Munday/Tony Feder/Getty Images Surprisingly, both Robert Allenby and Stuart Appleby still are searching for a major title.

He is so obviously talented many have anointed him the most likely to cause Tiger Woods problems and he is a beautiful hitter.

People in Australia question his putting but only because he hit a few horrible putts in big tournaments when the cameras and the pressure were right on him. He has to be a good putter to be amongst the best ten of fifteen players in the world and he did make a 12 footer to win on the course of the Island Green. A bad putter would have missed that putt every time. Mind you, he did hit a horrific six iron into the water at the final hole when any chunk to the right would have done.

He is in the Norman class of can't miss and he will win a big one, one day.

Lonard won the past two Australian Opens and less than a decade ago he was a genuine club-professional giving lessons and selling chocolate to the members.

He finally won in America at Hilton Head, something Graham Marsh did almost thirty years ago with exactly the same precise game that accumulates money like the half-way house at Sunningdale.

Photo: © Win McNamee/Getty Images Adam Scott has the look of a man on a mission, but can his putter join him?

Marsh would have won a lot more if he could have played a proper bunker shot and Lonard would win more if he could putt even a little better than he does. As a club pro, playing a big event on one of our best courses he once shot 67 with 35 putts. That day kept him in the shop for another year before he finally listened to his mates who told he could make a living playing.

He isn't useless but his stumbling final nine at Hilton Head was an exercise in torture with the putter.

He does hit straight enough though to do something on a typical Open course.

Ogilvy is one of unusual physical talent and until his win at Tuscon earlier in the year he was more than tired of answering the "Why haven't you won?" question.

Statistically, he was the best player in America last season but he still manages to hit half a dozen shots a season that cost him a million dollars and he has managed to accumulate enough shots on Sundays this year to make him just about the worst final day player on tour.

He must be the only player on tour this year to make a million dollars without breaking 70 in Sunday.

There are some in Australia who thought his first win would be a big one and Tuscon wasn't what they had in mind although it was cause for celebration.

He has played some terrific rounds this year but only the previous week at The Memorial he was 66,75 on the weekend with a six to finish off a day where he could have won.

Like Retief Goosen, his biggest successes will come in his thirties and he is three years away from them.

Rod Pampling is another who won last year when he mastered the altitude of Denver and he is another who has really prospered in America. He works hard and he has played better as he has learnt to drive shorter and straighter.

Can a Rod Pampling win a U.S Open?

I guess he could. You only have to go down the list of names on the trophy to know that and he was in the top five in The Masters.

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