New look Australian Open details revealed
The Australian Open trophy – image courtesy of Golf Australia
The news today of the Capital.com Australian Open being confirmed for Victoria in 2026, 2027, 2029, and 2030 (the 2027 edition played at the Peninsula Kingswood Golf Club) clarifies earlier suggestions as to Adelaide’s soon-to-be-redeveloped North Adelaide Golf Club hosting the event from 2028.
The earlier statement suggested there was to be at least three men’s Australian Opens played in Adelaide between 2028 and 2034, and today, the news that the highly regarded Peninsula Kingswood’s role in 2027, resulting in Victoria playing host to the event in four of the next five years, provides a level of certainty for the event’s direction. The 2026 version will, of course, be played at Kingston Heath Golf Club in December.
There is no indication at this stage as to which of Melbourne’s great sandbelt layouts will play host in 2029 and 2030.
In 2028, the Presidents Cup returns to Melbourne and Kingston Heath for the fourth staging of the clash between the Internationals and the USA, and, in that year, North Adelaide is expected to play host to the Australian Open on the basis that the newly redesigned Greg Norman layout is ready for the task.
The arrangement would suggest that Adelaide would also host at least two of the next four Australian Opens beyond 2030.
The news that the PGA Tour is providing support should, in theory, provide a boost for the event in terms of funding and encouragement for members of that tour to play the event, although it should be remembered that the partnership between the PGA Tour, the DP World Tour and the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia does not include a full joint sanctioning arrangement with the Americans.
Therefore, there is no suggestion at this stage that a winner of the event would automatically gain playing rights for the PGA Tour.
It should also be remembered that in 2001, when the PGA Tour decided to bring its Accenture World Golf Championship event to the Metropolitan Golf Club in Melbourne in January of that year, very few of the world’s leading players attended, although the date in early January proved troublesome in terms of attracting such players to the other side of the world.
American Steve Stricker won that event, defeating Sweden’s Pierre Fulke in the final, leaving many a little disappointed in the lack of big-name players in the latter stages of the event.
This new arrangement, however, comes at a different time for world golf and the financial and moral support of the PGA Tour, resulting in a more attractive purse and a definite place in the world golfing schedule, should encourage more of the leading DP World Tour players and PGA Tour players to Melbourne a week after the Australian PGA Championship in late November.
The news is a considerable boost for the Australian Open, which, until last year’s event at Royal Melbourne when some of the greatest crowds to an Australian golfing event since Tiger Woods’ appearance 15 years earlier flocked to see Rory McIlroy, had lost its way with a desire to combine both the men’s and women’s events at the same venue at the same time proving very unpopular.
The involvement of a new naming-rights sponsor, Capital.com, an international company established in 2016 to facilitate trading on the financial markets, of the world should also provide an injection of funding to assist in elevating the Australian Open to its rightful position in world golf.
The continued return of the Australian Open to its former glory of the 1970’s can only be a good thing for Australian golf, and it is hoped that the players being targeted respond accordingly.
