Jake Riley1, Newcastle Herald, November 11, 2025

Jake Riley recalls his NSW Open debut at age 14

Transcript

00:00Jake Riley from Toronto, head of the New South Wales Open.

00:02Jake, you first played in this event when you were 14 years old.

00:05What's changed since those days?

00:07There's definitely a bit of height and weight about me.

00:10Yeah, I definitely feel now that I can compete.

00:15If I play my best golf, I know I can definitely compete with these guys.

00:19Not as much here for just tagging on the experience.

00:22I want to play well.

00:23I want to kind of be at the top of the leaderboard.

00:26What are those memories of playing against the professionals for the first time

00:29in your first play tournament as a 14-year-old?

00:31Yeah, very good.

00:32I mean, they're probably, I would say, probably are going to be my favourite golfing memories to date.

00:38I mean, yeah, the chip in to qualify and being that young at a pro event,

00:42you kind of definitely feel out of place.

00:46But, no, it's a lot of good memories and, yeah, definitely something I can look back on.

00:50Now you're 20, mate.

00:51You're in the Nisselaer's high-performance team.

00:53You're one of 17 amateurs here playing this weekend.

00:55What's your aspirations, mate?

00:56What's your goals to get out of this week?

00:58Yeah, I mean, obviously, you want to play all four days and play some good golf.

01:04But I've just, yeah, try to do the best I can, go through my processes and, yeah,

01:10just kind of hit every shot as it comes and then just let the results take care of itself.

01:15Try not to get too results-focused and driven.

01:18Just kind of, yeah, do what I do and let everything take care of itself.

01:22All right.