BMW Australian PGA Championship
SPAIN’S David Puig is used to going places nobody’s been.
He was the first person to go straight from the US college circuit to LIV Golf, skipping his senior year at Arizona State University, and the first LIV golfer to be accepted as a member of the DP World Tour.
And, at his first start on that tour, he became the first Spanish golfer to win the Australian PGA Championship since his hero Seve Ballesteros in 1981.
Puig, just a week short of his 24th birthday, broke away from a multitude of challengers on the final day at Royal Queensland to beat rising Chinese star Wenyi Ding by a shot, with Kiwi Nick Voke a fast-finishing third.
“It means the world for sure,” said Puig after being greeted on the 18th green by his fiancé Berta Sanchez, who has been by his side for the past seven years.
“I was really looking forward to that first professional win on the DP World Tour. I was pretty close a few times throughout the last couple of years, but I wasn’t able to get it done, especially in that Spanish Open last year.
“I’m really happy about that and excited and proud of all the work that I’ve been putting in and, obviously, my name being with Seve’s name as the only two Spaniards to have won this event makes it even more special.”
Puig, who joined LIV Golf in 2022, played on the DP World Tour last season as an affiliate member. He’s a fulltime member this season, but remains part of Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs GC on the LIV Golf League.
Because of his ties with LIV and his commitment to play LIV events, he may be subject to some fines later in the DP World Tour season.
But Puig won’t care. Though he went winless on the LIV Tour this year he still banked US$8.5 million in prizemoney, as well as collecting $403,750 for his Royal Queensland victory.
And he enjoys playing in Europe.
“I grew up watching the DP World Tour since I was six or seven years old, watching Seve first and then Sergio and Jon Rahm,” he said. “Thankfully we got lots of players there so it was always a dream to play here and I got the chance and I’m really happy. Hopefully I can be a member for lots of years.”
Puig showed great poise during the final round, firing birdies on the second, third and fourth holes to set up an early lead, then repelling the challenges of Min Woo Lee, Marc Leishman, Ding and Voke. Puig played his final 40 holes in 13 under par, without a single dropped shot, for an 18-under par winning total.
Leishman, who seems to always contend in the Australian PGA, knows Puig well from the LIV Golf circuit.
“He’s a great player,” Leishman said. “He hits it very long, a really good all round player.
“When his head’s on his shoulders the right way he’s dangerous. He’s only really young. He’s played our charity day so I’ve got to know him a little bit.
“Yeah, really good fella,” he said. “Obviously happy for him, but wish it was me.”
Puig was an outstanding junior, playing for Spain in the Junior Golf World Cup, where he won silver in 2018 and bronze in 2019. He represented Europe in the 2018 Junior Ryder Cup, and finished third in the 2021 European Amateur behind Christoffer Bring and Ludvig Aberg.
The Australian PGA victory was his third as a professional, the others being the 2023 International Series Singapore and the 2024 Malaysian Open, both on the Asian Tour.
