Nick Dunlap is shaping up at the American Express, Ludvig Aberg emerged as a star with two victories and the Ryder Cup just starting his professional career, Michael Thorbjornsen has returned from his injury with a top 10 in Dubai, Sam Bennett was up in the past Masters, Christo Lamprecht took the lead in the first round of the Open, Caleb Surratt is heading to LIV Golf with Jon Rahm thanks to his tremendous projection… and Kazuma Kobori confirms his talent after an excellent 2023 as an amateur to put his first stake in Flanders.
The 22-year-old New Zealander had been showing a lot of promise with his victories in the Australian Amateur, the Western Amateur and the individual title of the World Amateur, no less. He didn’t crow in his fourth challenge of the course, the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, where he finished sixth at the end of October. In case of victory, he would have continued as an amateur because the champion received an invitation to the Masters and exemption to the Open. So without further ado, he turned professional in November and quickly started his new journey in the Australian PGA.
Congratulations Kazuma Kobori the 2024 #WebexPlayersSeries Murray River Champion 🏆 pic.twitter.com/UijJAiTS3G
— PGA of Australia (@PGAofAustralia) January 21, 2024
He finished ninth in his first tournament as a pro, the Queensland PGA Championship, and two weeks later he came close to victory in the Victorian PGA Championship, where he wasted a six-stroke lead in the final round to finish in third position. A big blow and at the same time a learning lesson. Perhaps the blow weighed on him and he didn’t make the cut in the Fortinet Australian or the ISPS Handa Australian Open, the two year-end events co-sanctioned with the DP World Tour. In the second week of this 2024, he finished 27th in the Heritage Classic and on January 21st he hit the jackpot by being crowned in the Webex Players Series Murray River. The victory was emotional, because in this mixed tournament he was playing in the star match alongside his older sister, Momoka, a professional on the Ladies European Tour who finished in third place.
Kazuma, who already won a professional tournament as an amateur at 17 in 2019 (PGA Championship of New Zealand), buried the demons of that collapse in the fourth round of the Victorian PGA Championship to complete a two-stroke victory at the Cobram Barooga Golf Club.
Kobori admitted that his three-stroke lead gave him a bad night and yet he conquered the victory in hot and windy conditions after scoring a -3 partial for a -21 total. That was enough to contain the energetic charge of Singaporean Shannon Tan (65), second in her first event as a professional, while Momoka took the bronze along with Australians Aaron Wilkin and Andrew Martin.
Note the name of the new pearl of Oceanic golf, Kazuma Kobori, who is not far behind Aberg, Dunlap, Lamprecht, Sargent, Thorbjornsen, Surratt…
