As she’s shown in Europe and on our Australasian Tour, Kazuma Kobori is a masterful mid- and short-iron player – he has to be; without a short game to go with his pop-gun long one, he’d barely be earning beer money in Troppo Tour Pro-Ams.
Pop-gun? That’s harsh. He complemented his position of 174th in driving distance (with an average of 254m; Tour average 272m) with a second in driving accuracy (72 percent; Tour average 58 percent).
He’s like a pro golf version of the old boy at your club who stilll plays off single figures with a game that’s 180-straighty and which putts dots off a Hot Dot. He may also have some sort of chipping club called a “jigger” or “pitching niblick” or something with Norman von Nida’s name on it.
Of course, it’s #exciting to watch the bombers in the flesh up close. There’s something visceral about the drive, it’s our exploding snooker break, our six over the Members Stand at the SCG. Men, mostly men, it must be said, exhale through their mouths watching from the behind the hoardings – “faaaarkkk”.
But you could hit 14 bombs out here at Royal Queensland, and if you don’t then hit the green and one-putt, you won’t break par, and you won’t win the PGA Championship, and it’s domination of the Troppo Tour Pro-Am circuit for you.
Driving distance is great; the old putt for dough holds plenty water still.
To paraphrase the great Ben Hogan, putting should almost be another sport to “golf”. Getting the ball onto the green is a whole other athletic action to putting. Once you’re on the green, the game turns into lawn bowls.
To paraphrase another great, Homer J. Simpson, you don’t win friends with salad, you don’t paint pictures on a scorecard, and you don’t win the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland without making one-putts.
And you don’t, if you’re 24-year-old Kiwi Kobori, have any answer to the long bombers in the field if your own medium-to-short game doesn’t compensate for your relative lack of length off the tee.
“Relative” lack? Scratch that. Actual lack. In the arms race of big boy bombers in world golf with their long levers, computer-simulated “smash factor” and Pilates-honed flexibility of prehensile steel, Kobori is firing a slug gun, admittedly one that pings his golf ball down the middle, time and time again.
Kazuma Kobori’s approach to the par-4 first was typically pure, though began 50-metres behind Min Woo Lee (left). PHOTO: Getty Images
There was a time when Billy Dunk, Peter O’Malley, Nick O’Hern, Paul Gow, Norman Von Nida – you could go back to Gene Sarazen – could compete and beat the big dogs with accuracy, guile and short games from hell.
But everyone has that stuff now, as well as owning great big long bombs. It’s redundant to praise long driving. “Adam Scott hits one 330m” will not appear above the fold in The New York Times. They’re all tall, they’re all long. One of the shorter guys on the PGA Tour is Will Zalatoris who is 6-foot-two.
And yet, Kobori did do enough for three rounds to be one off the lead and a genuine chance of being the first Kiwi to win the Australian PGA Championship since Greg Turner in 1986.
So there is that.
Does Kazuma Kobori hit the ball far enough away to compete on professional tours? He does – but his short game has to be spot on. PHOTO: Getty Images.
And there is this: I find him interesting. For here he is, this imp, 5-foot-8 (174cm) who hits driver 250m, a man who can do with seven-iron what most can do with wedge, namely stiff it to 20 feet from 150m out.
Do that often enough and drain the odd one-putt, you’ll contend on any tour, as Kobori did when winning the Australasian Tour Order of Merit in 2023/24 and in running 44th on his second year on the DP World Tour.
And thus his battle today with noted bombers Adam Scott and Min Woo Lee in the penultimate and, with apologies to messrs Puig, Quayle and Gouveia, marquee group of the final round of this PGA Championship has brought Golf Australia magazine out onto the first fairway at Royal Queensland GC.
We want to see how this diminutive, smiling man from Japan via Rangiora, a village of 20,000 souls north of Christchurch, can take it up to the buck athletes Lee and Scott like a latter day Bill Dunk duking it out with a pair of Greg Normans.
And so, we’re out onto the first fairway and the crowd is thick behind the ropes and around the first green. Kobori is first to play, as he will be all day, given he’s behind his playing partners by 52-metres, it says so on my laser scope.
Regardless, he hits it purely to about 15-feet to a back-right sucker-pin. It’s a beautiful golf shot, and ends roughly the same as Scott’s and Lee’s efforts, though only the latter makes his birdie putt.
Lee birdies three, bogies four, smashes driver 320-metres down the fifth. Kobori hits driver, too, and he’s 50m back of Lee, and 20m short of Scott who hit a three-wood.
Kobori bogies five, bogies six, pars the par-5 7th. When his approach slices into the trees on 10, that’s effectively his tournament. No birdies. His short game, today, has not complemented his long one.
And you think: maybe he needs to bulk up, get some smash factor action, all that. He’s not going to get any taller. Does need to get onto the Pilates Reformer, and hone those fast-twitch fibres?
And then you think, the hell would we know? Maybe we should leave him be given he was in contention for most of this tournament and won $25,000 for T25, to go with the $1.4 million he’s earned on tour this year.
And despite a dud four-over 75 to end his week, the Kiwi was right in this thing with three rounds of hot golf at RQ. He was third strokes gained: around the green; third strokes gained: putting. Until he wasn’t, for such is golf.
But here’s the thing: you can win friends with salad. And you can win by hitting greens and one-putting – no matter how far down the fairway you whack it off the tee.
© Golf Australia. All rights reserved.
