Lonard will be the special guest at this year's $50,000 JPC Insurance Wagga Pro-Am, becoming the latest in a long list of big names to attend Wagga Country Club for the event.

Lonard, 54, won back-to-back Australian Opens in 2003-04 and was a member of the US PGA Tour for nine years, where he reached his highest ranking of number 23 in the world.

Lonard will be special guest at the gala dinner on Wednesday night, March 23, before hitting the fairways of the Wagga Country Club for the two-day event the following Thursday and Friday.

Pro-Am board member Olivia Wilcox said attracting Lonard to Wagga was a real coup for the club.

"It will be Peter's first visit to Wagga, which is really cool," Wilcox said.

"What we aim to do with the Pro-Am is to make it bigger and better every single year.

"Someone like Peter coming on board to play shows the calibre of players that the Pro-Am attracts and that players like that want to come to Wagga to play. It's really exciting for us."

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Lonard will join quality Australian golfers such as Marcus Fraser, Jordan Zunic, Jack Wilson, Daniel Gale and Bryden McPherson as confirmed starters at Wagga.

It comes on the back of Wagga Country Club increasing prizemoney to $50,000 for this year's event.

"We've got Peter coming in who is obviously an established pro but we've also got a lot of exciting young guns as well," Wilcox said.

"The increase in prizemoney to $50,000 is quite substantial prize pool for a country Pro-Am."

Defending champion Matthew Millar is among the 100 golfers to already enter the tournament, that will have to be culled down to a starting field of 60.

Former Australian cricketer and media personality Greg Ritchie will return to again take on MC duties at the gala dinner.

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