Cameron Smith (winning putt) became the eleventh man to successfully defend his Australian PGA Championship title today at RACV Royal Pines Resort, Gold Coast, Australia.
The event which dates back its origin to 1905 saw the first winner Scottish Dan Soutar win it three times, back to back until 1907, a record still waiting to be broken on the Australian PGA Championship.
RELATED: Cameron Smith wins the Australian PGA Championship 2017
The last man to win back to back was Robert Allenby, in 2000 & 2001, as a matter of fact, he won the event 4 times.
Other nine men who defended their titles were Carnegie Clark (1908, 1909), Tom Howard (1924, 1925), Harry Sinclair (1927, 1928), Eric Cremin (1937, 1938), Norman Von Nida (1950, 1951), Ken Nagle (1958, 1959), Bruce Devlin (1969, 1970), Randall Vines (1972, 1973), and Greg Norman (1984, 1985).
But if you are looking for the man who won it the most? It was Kel Nagle who won it six times in 1949, 1954, 1958, 1959, 1965, and 1968, a record of its own spanning over 20 years.
Last year, Smith defeated Zunic on the second playoff hole for the title, the pair played the 18th hole twice when Zunic made bogey and Smith made a par to win the last event on the ISPS Handa PGA Tour Australasia calendar.
This time Cameron Smith posted a total score of 16-under to win by two shots against Marc Leishman.
Their battle on the Gold Coast was full of twists and turns, with Leishman getting an early jump on his World Cup team partner before relinquishing a two-shot lead with six holes to play.
It was a great show of nerve by the 25-year-old from Brisbane and a missed opportunity for Victoria’s world No.21 Leishman, who is still chasing a maiden title on home soil.
Gaganjeet Bhullar, who started his 2019 European Tour schedule from here finished T-4o with a total score of 288, after a testing third round where he went 6-over 78 after being under the Top-10 line on first two days of the event. He posted 1-under 71 today to get under the top-40 position from T-56 yesterday.
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