Cullen’s happy to ease back
AUSTRALIAN Masters champ Nick Cullen wants to temper expectations ahead of tomorrow’s Vic Open as he embarks on swing changes the South Australian hopes can take his golf to the next level.
Cullen was a surprise winner of the Masters at Metropolitan last November, where he held out a fast-finishing Adam Scott, having struggled to play his best golf through most of 2014.
The left-hander’s victory led to some marquee pairings at the Australian Open and PGA, where he performed well enough to finish inside the top 30 at both events.
Since then however Cullen hasn’t played a tournament. He returned to his base in the US and spent much of January practising and working out a 2015 schedule that will include plenty of attempts at Monday qualifying on the US PGA Tour.
To ready himself for his shots at the big time, Cullen has started working on some swing changes.
And the 30-year-old has gone down the path of change despite extra eyes now watching his every move at 13th Beach this week as the winner of one of Australia’s triple crown events.
“You can’t worry about what people think and it’s all about whether you want to focus on the smaller picture or the bigger picture,” Cullen said yesterday.
“I want to play as well as I can this week, but I want to improve and that takes time and there are sometimes guys who go through down patches to get better.
“I am hoping that won’t be the case, I hope I play better than before. But now is the best time for me to make changes. I don’t have a lot coming up. I want to improve everything for the second half of the year.”