ZIMBABWEAN professional golfer Brendon de Jongé will be hoping to erase memories of a difficult just-ended season by making a strong start at the PGA Tour season-opening Frys.com Open at the Silverado Country Club North in Napa in California, US, tomorrow. DANIEL NHAKANISO SPORTS REPORTER
The Frys.com Open which has a prize fund of $6 million is the first event of the 2014 to 2015 PGA Tour season.
De Jongé will be part of the strong field of 144 players who will be gunning for the $1 080 000 winners’ cheque in what will be his first tournament since the Deutsche Bank Championship in early September.
The Harare-born golfer will head into the new season seeking not just his first PGA Tour win, but hoping to play well enough to earn a place in next year’s President’s Cup competition.
De Jonge, who made his Presidents Cup debut last year, recently expressed his desire to be part of Nick Price’s internationals squad for next year’s biennial competition to be held in South Korea.
“Looking forward to next year, the major goal is to try and get back on Nick’s (Nick Price) President’s Cup team and get to relive that wonderful experience again,” the 34-year-old Zimbabwean golfer said in an exclusive interview with sister paper NewsDay Sport.
Despite the absence of world number one Rory McIlroy, the Frys.com Open still boasts of a very strong field with five of the top 27 players in the world ranking expected to tee off in the 2014 to 2015 season-opening event.
American Matt Kuchar, at number nine, is the highest-ranked player in the field, and he will be joined by defending champion Jimmy Walker (19th), Japanese Hideki Matsuyama (20), Hunter Mahan (21) and Patrick Reed (27).
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De Jongé will head into the tournament ranked 96th in the world.
