Australian Open 2015: Ryan Ruffels expecting good marks as schooling takes preference

By Adam Pengilly
Updated December 29 2015 - 10:23am, first published November 30 2015 - 7:33am
Ryan Ruffels' plans to turn pro could be fast-tracked by a breakout win over the next three weeks. Photo: Jay Cronan
Ryan Ruffels' plans to turn pro could be fast-tracked by a breakout win over the next three weeks. Photo: Jay Cronan

Ryan Ruffels has long been touted as Australia's next big thing, but the 17-year-old soon-to-be-professional had a good reason for struggling at the Australian Masters last week – he was finishing school. And he reckons his final marks will make the grade. "I'm not going to go to college and a lot of people said, 'You don't need school'," said Ruffels, the Australian Open's leading amateur after finishing the tournament at three-over. "But for my own self-pride I thought I would get it done. I'm only going to get my VCE [Victorian equivalent of HSC] once and I focused pretty hard on that the past couple of weeks to make sure I got something decent and some self-pride in that." Ruffels managed to hold off Australian Masters joint runner-up Bryson DeChambeau and American compatriot Jordan Niebrugge as well as unheralded Taiwanese Yu Chun-An for the leading amateur crown. It is likely to be his last shot at the Australian Open with that status as he plans to turn professional early in the new year. "The amateurs that are here this week are sensational," Ruffels said. "What Bryson has been able to do this week has been sensational and he's a great guy as well. It's been great to have him here in Australia and he's been very insightful to a lot of people the way he goes about his golf. Jordan is top 10 in a major and it doesn't matter if you're an amateur or a professional ... that's a great achievement."

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