Magenta Shores – image LET Tristan Jones
Women’s professional golf returns to Australian shores this week for the first of two events jointly sanctioned between the WAPGA and Ladies European Tours.
The Women’s NSWOpen and the Australian Women’s Classic will be played at the Magenta Shores Golf and Country Club on the Central Coast of NSW and at the Bonville Golf Resort in Coffs Harbour, both events offering prizemoney of €300,000 and for those not otherwise qualified the chance to leapfrog their way onto the Ladies European Tour.
Australian Kirsten Rudgeley heads the Australian challenge in terms of world ranking while New Zealander Momoka Kobori whose brother, Kazuma, took the PGA Tour of Australasia by storm this year by winning three events and leading the Order of Merit, appears likely to feature in the finish.
Kobori is the defending champion of the NSW Open.
West Australian, Rudgeley, produced several impressive performances on the Ladies European Tour last year during her rookie season there and is expected to do well amongst the Australians in the field.
Kobori has already won two events on the Ladies European Tour’s secondary tour and earlier this year finished runner-up in a Webex TPS Series in Australia.
Amongst those from the LET in the field are last year’s Order of Merit winner, Trichat Gleenglab, and the current leader this season Bronte Law.
Also a consideration will be Singaporean Shannon Tan who has already won in Kenya and in Australia in 2024 and is currently just behind Law on the LET Order of Merit.
Anne Van Dam from the Netherlands is a former LPGA Tour player with four LET wins to her name and as one of the longer hitters in the female game and as the leading world-ranked player in the field, her performance will be watched with interest.
The event is using Magenta Shores for the first occasion, and the links layout will provide a strong test of the event which gets underway on Friday.
