Daniel Popovic will skip this week’s defence of the Australian PGA Championship title for the goal of trying to earn a 2014 European Tour card.
Twelve months ago the then Australasian Tour rookie ignored the distractions of life-size replica dinosaurs to lead from start-to-finish and win the championship by three strokes at the Palmer Coolum course in Queensland.
Earlier in 2012 Popovic was nearly set to quit the game to take care of his seriously ill father.
Daniel Popovic turning down defending his Australian PGA Championship title to tee up in the European Tour Q-School.
And while Masters champion, Adam Scott will be the center of attraction at this week championship at the Royal Pines course also in Queensland, Popovic is taking full advantage of being exempt, by virtue of his Australian PGA win, into the Final Stage of European Tour School qualifying at the PGA Catalunya course in Girona, Spain.
“I’m not defending the Australian PGA because of the European Tour Q-School, and I’m absolutely devastated,” he said.
“Six months ago I organized my schedule and just sort of brushed over the dates for the championship and organised with a good mate of mine, Keiran Pratt to head over to Spain for European Tour Q-School.
“So low and behold about a week-and-a-half ago everything changed and I think for my future and my career I have to go to the Q-School.”
Popovic revealed it was having dinner with Pratt on the Monday night ahead of the recent Perth International that they discussed the prospect of entering European Tour Qualifying given also Pratt also is exempt into the six-round Final Stage.
“We talked about travelling to Spain together and sharing a hotel room and he said to me ‘When do you want to get there?’ and I said after playing in the Australian PGA,” said Popovic.
“But Kieran then said you can’t be playing the PGA if you want to be playing the Q-School finals so now I have my eyes set on playing in Spain instead of the Gold Coast because the final day of next week’s Australian PGA is the first round of Q-School.
“And the funny thing was that earlier in the day before speaking with Kieran I got a call from Golf Australia wanting to know whether I was playing the Australian PGA and then I got a couple of phone calls from journalists about defending my title.
“But then that night it all changed I had to phone back the Tour to say that I was not playing.
“So in the bigger picture it is a European Tour I want and I am sure that I will have many more chances in my career to play the Australian PGA and getting my European Tour is going to be the best opportunity of getting to where I want to be in my career and where you can be challenging yourself every week.”
Popovic will commence his final round in Shanghai at one over par and play the last day in the company of American Brandt Snedeker and recent FedEx Cup champion and current European No. 1 Henrik Stenson.
SINCE WINNING THE AUSTRALIAN PGA
“But since winning the Australian PGA my year has been very up and down, and it’s been really hard to post good numbers on the board,” he said.
