Just seven days ago we told you the story of Kazuma Kobori, a young New Zealander, 22 years old, who had just won the Webex Players Series Murray River of the PGA of Australia, his first victory as a professional. Last year, still as an amateur, he had conquered the Australian Amateur, the Western Amateur and the individual title of the World Amateur. And after his sixth place in the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, he had decided to leave behind his amateur stage to start competing with a new status.
This Sunday, sinking a putt of about three meters on the 18th green of the Rosebud Country Club, he has achieved his second consecutive trophy on the tour, this time, in the Webex Players Series Victoria. With only eight events behind him after making the leap, he already has two titles in the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia, a feat that no one had achieved since Adam Scott in 2013.
With this victory, in addition to demonstrating that we are facing a budding talent in world golf, the golfer from Christchurch, who at 17 years old, still as an amateur, had won the PGA Championship of New Zealand, a professional tournament, pockets another 45,000 dollars, the same booty he had rescued last week, and jumps to the second place in the Order of Merit of the circuit, shooting his chances of getting a card for the DP World Tour of 2025.
With 18 strokes under par in total, he beat the Malaysian Ashley Lau by one and the veteran Mat Goggin by two. “They always say that the first victory is hard, but I’ll tell you one thing: now I can say that the second is just as hard,” he said after his triumph. “I’m happy to have achieved it,” he concluded. Goggin, in his same group, was the one who gave him the most battle, but not even sending his ball to the green bunker on the 18th made, at least apparently, the young New Zealander tremble. The procession was inside…
“I was very nervous, some advice my coach gave me came to mind. I took my time and the putt was not particularly difficult, it was totally straight, I had it there and I knew it was going to fall,” he said. After emigrating from Japan to New Zealand when he was still a baby, good old Kazuma decided to follow in the footsteps of his older sister, also a golfer, to dedicate himself to the sport. Now, as a double winner in the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia, he begins to dream of more ambitious heights.
