IT’S fair to say the one-time outstanding junior golfer, Brett Coletta, came home from the US a few years ago with his tail between his legs.
He was a golfer without portfolio and literally had nowhere to tee it up.
Playing on the Korn Ferry Tour, he had missed gaining a card on the PGA Tour by a whisker, only to be forced out of qualifying for the big dance by Covid.
“I got Covid during qualifying school when it was really ramping up so I had to pull out. I didn’t have a category. So, I literally didn’t have anywhere to play.”
Coletta was reflecting on his roller-coaster ride in the game not long after his imperious final round 65 vaulted him to the top of the leader board and victory in the Vic Open at 13th Beach on the Bellarine Peninsula.
COMEBACK COMPLETE: Following his win in the Vic Open, Brett Coletta is now in the box seat to claim one of three DP World Tour cards.
“It was pretty rough coming home from the States after getting so close. I re-evaluated my team and just started from square one again. I was lucky enough back in Australia for a few guys like Geoff Ogilvy to give me a few starts. If I go back to that time, it is a really big jump to where I am now.
“I look back on the hard times and see it as experience rather than having any negatives towards it. I see it as, ‘yeah I played well in the States and got close, but at the end of the day it wasn’t for me’.’’
Currently third with two events remaining, the win has put Coletta in a great spot to finish top three on the local order of merit and win a card on the DP World Tour for 2024-25.
“I’m trying not to hyper-fixate on it too much,” he said.
If he can finish first, he also gets his first-ever major championship start at the Open Championship this July at Royal Troon.
“I feel like I’m a different person (from when he had nowhere to play), for sure,” he said.
“I’m 27 now. I was only 23 at the time (when he played so well on the KFT). Definitely some sort of maturing goes on and Covid exacerbates that as well. I was stuck over there, I couldn’t get back, it was just a brutal time.”
IN THE WOMEN’S VIC OPEN, Malaysia’s Ashley Lau added a huge win to her already impressive Australian summer at the 2024 Vic Open, preventing former world No.1 Jiyai Shin from becoming the first woman to successfully defend the title.
In tremendous form after a second and an eighth in the previous two Webex Players Series events, Lau claimed victory when she produced the low final round of 66 which included seven birdies.
“I came down here just to prepare for the upcoming Epson Tour. This is a big confidence boost. Australia holds such a special place in my heart,” she said with two arms around the Vic Open trophy.
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