Regus Johnston arrived in the Sand Belt with no expectations.
After all, he is currently the No. 953 player in the world and six months away from graduating from Arizona State. But he can play. Earlier this month, Johnston qualified for the 2025 European Tour by finishing eighth at the DP World Tour Qualifying School.
He made his DP World Tour debut at the BMW Australian PGA Championship last week, finishing tied for 43rd – a good result for a first-time player. But no one expected Johnston to be competing at this week's Australian Open, the start of only the second DP World Tour event of his career. Even Johnston wasn't too confident about himself, especially given Melbourne's weather prevented the 24-year-old American from playing practice rounds at Kingston Heath. He went into this game completely blind.
However, Johnston ultimately won the Australian Open by three strokes over Australian Curtis Luck, a remarkable achievement for the young American. He shot two 4-under 68s over the weekend to top the leaderboard with a total score of 18 under.
“It feels great, just knowing [I get] more opportunities to play and [I get] Get into bigger events,” Johnston said.
“It’s not completely settled yet, but it’s an amazing feeling.”
Johnston became the 11th American to win the Stonehaven Cup, the prestigious trophy awarded to the Australian Open champion. It’s a trophy engraved with dozens of household names. Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Jordan Spieth – these are players who not only won multiple major championships, but also the Australian Open. This tournament has such a long history that Nicklaus once called it the “fifth Grand Slam.”
“It’s really cool to be around these guys,” Johnston added.
“I'm honored to be able to put my name on it now as well, and I will cherish this moment forever.”
Johnston has traveled around the world over the past few weeks, which makes his victory even more impressive. Less than a day after he returned to the United States from Q-School in Spain, he went to Australia to participate in these two games.
“Honestly, I just wanted to use the last game as a warm-up and then hopefully I play better in this one, and I did that,” Johnston noted.
“But as far as winning, I probably didn't really expect to come out here and win. I just wanted to come out here and play good golf, and I just happened to put myself in a good position today.”
Jack Milko is the golf staff writer for SB Nation's Playing Through. Be sure to check it out @_PlayingThrough Get more golf coverage. You can follow him on Twitter @jackmilko as well as.
