Eccles enters home stretch of 2023-24 season

TORQUAY golf pro Ben Eccles is looking forward to a well-deserved break in the coming months as the end of the PGA Tour of Australasia approaches.

Eccles has had a successful 2022-23 season, incuding a win at the WA Open in October and a runner-up finish at the Victorian PGA Championship in November.

The WA Open title was Eccles’ first win on the tour in eight years, but the 29-year-old still has a few more events to complete before the end of the season.

“2023 was a great year for me personally, I sort of had no real expectations,” he said.

“I had to go back to Q School back in April and sort of went into the new season thinking if I could just apply myself the way I want and play my style, the results would then speak for themselves.”

Eccles is now competing at the Heritage Classic and will play in this year’s Vic Open from February 1-4, all four Webex Player Series events in Rosebud, Cobram, Sydney, and Hunter Valley, and the New Zealand Open from February 29 to March 3.

Eccles will need to lodge respectable scores to receive an invitation to The National Tournament from March 14-17.

He is also ranked second behind Min Woo Lee in the Order of Merit with 340.37 points heading into this weekend.

“The win in WA and the second-place finish at the PGA event were definitely the highlights of my year, but I feel like I can keep that going this year,” Eccles said.

“I’ll be pretty rusty after a bit of a break, but the mindset is something I still want to have as I did at the start of the season.

“If I can back myself in, I believe I can have a couple more good results so I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

Following the conclusion of the PGA Tour of Australia, Eccles is looking to take a sizeable break from between the middle of March to November.