Quiet Aussie achiever
who beat Tiger twice

There’s a reassuring calmness about Nick O’Hern. It’s delivered in his unaffected, symmetrical speech. His deceptively casual approach to his game. Even the composed way he strolls around the course. But surprisingly there’s nothing truly casual in the way he prepares for a tournament. For here is a man who desires routine.

“I typically take a week off before a tournament to get to the course early,” O’Hern said. “I familiarise myself with the layout, the details of the course. It’s a process I commit to.”

When O’Hern speaks about golf there’s an undeniable passion, but there’s also a veiled sense of being undeserving that permeates his language. Or perhaps here, at last, is a man who recognises and embraces his own self-doubt and understands that it is an essential part of his identity – and his success.

“I was never good enough as a younger player,” O’Hern said.

“I’d always wanted some involvement in the game. I wanted to maybe teach or be in a club. But I never dared think about the PGA.”

For O’Hern, it seems, each tentative step in his walk toward the PGA, has been shadowed by footprints of uncertainty. But once O’Hern digs his feet deep into the dirt, once he becomes comfortable in his environment that’s when he truly shines.

We have witnessed those moments, and rejoiced in them. Like the bunker shot to win the 2006 Australian PGA Championship.

That moment alone seemed to galvanise O’Hern’s uncompromising talent and lurking potential.

“That was easily the highlight of my career,” O’Hern said. “I’ll never forget that bunker shot. I think it gave me a real sense of what I was capable of.”

O’Hern always seems to be just a moment – or a shot – away from greatness. Even in his inaugural year on the US PGA, he was within sight of the shimmering prize on at least three occasions: The Travelers Championship, the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship, and the World Golf Championships-CA Championship.

O’Hern said he was relatively happy with his first year on the PGA Tour. Like most professional golfers, he would have preferred better results. Realistically, any player who doesn’t want more won’t last long on the world’s most prestigious tour. But he places a unique perspective on his objectives.

“I learned a long time ago to be realistic about what I can and can’t do,” O’Hern said. “There are certain things I know I can achieve in this game, and then there are things I know I can’t achieve.”

You could never attribute comments like those to Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, or most other players on the US PGA Tour. Yet, it’s that circumspection that makes O’Hern’s victories seem even more remarkable, and enjoyable.

As a man, O’Hern is a laconic, likeable character with an uncomplicated sense of identity. As a golfer, he’s an almost invisible member of a prestigious cartel of professional athletes, and you can’t help but want more for him. Perhaps even more than he wants for himself.

Talking with friends at a Sunday barbecue in Los Angeles earlier this year, the topic of Australian golfers emerged. Americans are fixated with sports and statistics, and I was interested to hear their comments on the growing number of Australian golfers on the PGA Tour. The usual suspects were mentioned: Stuart Appleby, Adam Scott, Robert Allenby. But then the conversation shifted to what they called lesser-known golfers: Rod Pampling, Nathan Green, and Nick O’Hern.

“Nick O’Hern,” said one friend, a 250-pound, six-foot-tall high school football coach. “He’s trumped Tiger twice.”

More tellingly, perhaps, was another comment: “I wouldn’t recognise him if he was face-up in my Cornflakes, but he’s a great golfer.”

That essentially sums up Nick O’Hern: the best player you’ve never heard of.

“I’ve had people cheer me on at events in the US where they didn’t know my name, but they knew me as the guy who had twice beaten Tiger,” O’Hern said. “There are worse things to be recognised for.”

That relative obscurity is sure to disappear – and be replaced by recognition and reward – the longer O’Hern plies his trade on the PGA Tour.

At this year’s Australian PGA Championship though, O’Hern will be playing to defend his title and to secure an even greater place in history, as he attempts to become only the eleventh player to have won successive titles.

Transcribed from the original magazine clipping. First published in Australian PGA Championship Magazine, pages 10–11. Typography and line breaks have been standardised for reading online.

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