Golf: Kiwi trio set for PGA Tour

Tim Wilkinson (above) and Danny Lee can arrange their PGA schedule to suit their style. Picture / Getty Images

Wilkinson, Lee and Alker make up biggest New Zealand contingent in over 10 years

New Zealand will have its biggest representation on the PGA Tour in more than a decade this season and the campaign starts in California tomorrow.

Tim Wilkinson, Danny Lee and Steven Alker are all confirmed starters for the season-opening Frys.com Open at the Silverado Resort as part of a wide-open field that's missing a collection of the game's biggest names.

Lee and Wilkinson kept their tour cards after solid 2013-2014 seasons, while Alker graduated back to golf's most lucrative circuit courtesy of a good year on the second-tier Web.com Tour where he finished 10th on the money list. The top 25 players earned PGA Tour cards.

The last time Kiwis had this sort of presence on the PGA Tour was in 2002, when Craig Perks, Frank Nobilo, Phil Tataurangi, Grant Waite and Michael Long held full playing rights.

Alker is under the most pressure to perform during the opening weeks of the new season as he needs to accumulate valuable FedEx Cup points before the first reshuffle of the priority order next month. The priority order determines what players can start in each tournament.

That means the Phoenix-based professional, who last played on the PGA Tour in 2003 and prefers narrow layouts, may have to line up at courses that don't suit his game.

"Steve's been there and done that and at 43, he's played a lot of golf courses," Nobilo, now a Golf Channel analyst, told the Herald.

"If you get off to a good start, you get re-ranked favourably and you get a better card and then you're in more tournaments. Get off to a bad start and you get re-ranked poorly and then you're really struggling."

Lee and the left-handed Wilkinson are in different positions, given they are fully exempt courtesy of finishing inside the top 125 players in last season's FedEx Cup. That means they can arrange their schedule around courses that set up nicely for them.

Lee, 24, has always had potential but a lack of consistency proved costly last season as he struggled to play four good rounds in a week.

"A guy on a good day can beat just about anybody but how bad is your bad day," Nobilo said. "He got off to a couple of good starts but he had a habit of when he made one mistake, he'd make two or three."

Nobilo said it was nice to see three Kiwis on tour this season but it wouldn't count for much if they failed to make an impact.

"You'd love to see New Zealanders contending and winning a tournament. I don't care which one of them it is. It'd be great for another New Zealander to win over here; I think that's the big thing to make more kids want to do it."

Frank Nobilo on our Kiwi prospects

Danny Lee (24)
Best performance last season: Second at the Puerto Rico Open. Finished 88th in the FedEx Cup.
The rub: Lee struggled with consistency last season. Some days he would shoot 65 then follow up with a 76.
Nobilo knows: "It's belief; it's shot selection," Nobilo said. "Danny hits a lot of pins, like a lot of young guys do; so it's just tightening your game. When he's on, he's on ... He's got tons of game."

Tim Wilkinson (36)
Best performance last season: Tied for seventh at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Finished 119th in the FedEx Cup.
The rub: Wilkinson was steady in 2013-2014 as he made 18 cuts from 25 tournaments but rarely threatened the leaders.
Nobilo knows: "I've always liked his game, there's no two ways about it. He's good, he doesn't take himself too seriously. He's played a lot of good golf over the years. I think he believes in his own game a little bit more now."

Steven Alker (43)
Best performance last season: Won the Web.com Tour's Cleveland Open in a record-setting playoff. Finished 10th on the Web.com Tour's money list to qualify for the 2014-2015 PGA Tour
The rub: Alker's results were inconsistent during last season's Web.com Tour but when he fired he was impressive.
Nobilo knows: "When he played well last season he played really well so if he could get off to a start where he's in contention in a couple of weeks, that would completely change the nature of his year."