After the dust has settled on the 2006 Cadbury Schweppes Australian PGA Championship, the PGA of Australia is delighted to announce not only did record crowds flock to the Hyatt Regency Coolum to watch Australia s best golfers in action but a number of other records were re-written in one of the most successful Australian PGA Championships ever staged. The final total crowd attendance for the four-day event was 45,600 – the largest crowd attendance in any tournament over the 2006 Australasian summer of golf and a record for the PGA Championship in Coolum. The increase in numbers equated to a 24 percent growth from the previous year. Television ratings also improved considerably in 2006 with an outstanding peak audience of 775,343 tuning into Channel Seven s Sunday telecast to watch the nail-biting playoff between Nick O Hern and Peter Lonard. Not only did O Hern and Lonard finish on the lowest winning score of any PGA Championship in its 101 year history at 22-under par, but their four-hole playoff is also thought to be a record for the PGA Championship. Nick s world golf ranking also improved 13 places from 35 to a career best of 22 courtesy of the win, which also received the highest number of world ranking points (17) of any of the recent Australasian Tour events, another record set by the PGA Championship and testament to the quality field that assembled for this year s event. In winning the 2006 Cadbury Schweppes Australian PGA Championship, Nick will also gain an automatic start in the Bridgestone Invitational, which is one of four World Golf Matchplay events held under the auspices of the International Federation of PGA Tours, alongside the Accenture Matchplay Championship, the American Express Championship and the World Cup. This year will be the fifth time that the winner of the Australian PGA Championship will have the chance to tee it up in the event, to be held in 2007 at the Firestone Country Club, Akron, Ohio from 30 July to 5 August. The top 10 players on the final leaderboard of the 2006 Cadbury Schweppes Australian PGA Championship -22: Nick O&aposHern (won on fourth playoff hole) 66 69 63 68, Peter Lonard 68 65 65 68 -19: Wade Ormsby 68 66 68 67 -18: Paul Gow 69 65 69 67 -16: Peter O&aposMalley 66 69 66 71 -15: David Smail 69 67 68 69 -14: Nathan Green 70 64 71 69 -13: Michael Wright 68 68 72 67, Stuart Appleby 67 71 70 67, James Nitties 64 74 68 69, Geoff Ogilvy 68 71 67 69