Austria
2018 Asian Tour Order of Merit winner John Catlin, 30, won the US$1.2 million Austrian Open to earn his first start in a major – the USPGA Championship in Wisconsin, USA after breaking into the top 25 in the current European Tour rankings.
Catlin is familiar to Delhi fans, having played the Indian Open a few times already. Catlin’s coach from California, Noah Montgomery also works with Gaganjeet Bhullar and with promising Indian girls Anika Varma and Nistha Madan who have both tasted considerable success in America playing college golf and the Cactus Tour in Arizona.
Watch the ‘TOUR5’ interview we did with John Catlin in April 2020 –
View this post on Instagram
The American has followed an interesting and long route to reach where he is at now, pretty similar to Brooks Koepka in his early days. Koepka started his journey with the European Challenge Tour and now has four majors to his name. Catlin started from college golf in New Mexico, moved to play on the Canadian Tour and later moved to Asia to play on the Asian Development Tour, advanced to Asian Tour and finally on the European Tour. The way things are going for him, it won’t take him long to reach the PGA Tour, where every player dreams to be.
Although Catlin has notched up 3 victories in his last 13 starts in Europe, he has also missed 6 cuts which shows wildly fluctuating fortunes. His Austrian Open victory came in dramatic fashion after a 5 hole playoff where his opponent finally dumped 3 balls in the water to hand the title to Catlin.