Ashley Opens field of dreams

By David Nagel
FOR 23 years Berwick-Montuna member Ashley Hall has dreamt of playing in a major championship and last week he turned that dream to reality when he qualified for this year’s Open Championship at Royal Lytham and St Anne’s.
Hall, 28, who started playing golf as a five-year-old with a cut down six-iron, qualified with a top three finish at the Australasia International Final Qualifying (IFQ) played at Kingston Heath last Tuesday and Wednesday.
It was a battle to the end for the Cranbourne resident who survived 90km an hour winds, lightning storms, a two-hour weather delay and a three-way play-off for two spots, before finally gaining his place in one of four majors played each year.
With Aaron Townsend already qualified with a 36-hole total of four-under par, Hall birdied his last hole to join Peter Senior and Nick Cullen on one-under par. With only two places left, one of the three was going to miss out.
Hall and Cullen both birdied the first play-off hole to leave the experienced Senior on the outer. For Hall it capped off a massive few months. In September, he and his wife Tara welcomed their first child Cooper into the world and that was followed by an impressive performance at last month’s JB Were Masters where Hall finished tied for sixth behind Ian Poulter.
It was no wonder it all hit Hall at once.
“Yeah, a bit emotional, I was a bit teary to be honest,” Hall said, on holidays in Perth this week to show off Cooper to Tara’s family.
“I’ve been thinking about it for seven years, since they brought the IFQ to Australia. “You know, what it would be like to play in a major, how I would feel, and now it’s happened. Everyone in the family’s pretty pumped to be honest.”
Hall has won twice on the Australian PGA Tour, the 2007 Victorian PGA was just his third professional start and he followed that with a win in the 2009 Victorian Open. Despite those victories Hall believes his performance at the Masters, combined with recent hard work with coach Dennis McDade and a growing maturity have him primed for his most successful season yet.
Hall set the Victoria Golf Club alight in round one of the Masters and was eight under par after 10 holes. He faltered towards the end of that round but was proud of his effort to still be in contention heading into Sunday’s final round.
“I just wanted a good finish at the Masters to get inside the top 50 on the order of merit,” Hall said. “I really exceeded those expectations and ended up 16th, so it’s really opened up some doors. That gets me into the second stage of qualifying for the US Tour later in the year and qualifying for the US Open in June. There are 14 tournaments on the OneAsia Tour as well so there’s plenty to do.”
His more immediate plans are to prepare for the Victorian PGA at Creswick in mid-February which could be rounded off by playing the Pakenham Pro-Am the week before. Hall hasn’t studied the Royal Lytham and St Anne’s venue just yet due to one part of his 23-year-old dream taking up more time than he anticipated.
“At the moment I’m trying to work out the logistics of getting the family to the Open,” he said. “It’s a big job.”
But it’s a job that Ashley Hall would be loving.