Australian golf is gearing up for its biggest month since Tiger Woods was in Melbourne for the 2019 Presidents Cup, but Golf Australia chief executive James Sutherland says it’s not LIV Golf that deserves the credit for the strength of this year’s Australian Open field.
From November 24, the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland will take place, followed by the Australian Open in Melbourne from December 1, and the fields for both events will feature some of the world’s best, including reigning British Open champion Cameron Smith, former world No.1 Adam Scott, and popular Victorian Marc Leishman.
Cameron Smith will headline next month’s Australian Open in Melbourne.Credit:Getty Images
Women will also compete at this year’s Australian Open alongside the men for the first time at a national Open, and the entries for the women’s draw include hall-of-famer Karrie Webb and young stars Hannah Green and Minjee Lee. The mixed gender event has been a feature of the Victorian Open at 13th Beach for a number of years, but Sutherland is rapt to roll out the format for the first time when the Australian Open takes place at Victoria Golf Club and Kingston Heath.
It’ll be Sutherland’s first Australian Open since he took over as chief executive in August 2020, and he said having genuine superstars playing was a significant coup for fans ahead of more major events, including golf at the Commonwealth Games in 2026 and the next Presidents Cup in 2028.
‘I couldn’t name a time when we had a better field or a better collection of Australian players back.’
James Sutherland
“For Australian golf fans to be able to get up close to them and see them live is absolutely tremendous,” Sutherland said.
“To have them all back together, I couldn’t name a time when we had a better field or a better collection of Australian players back. From that perspective, it’s brilliant.
“Both Cam Smith and Minjee Lee have been top two in the world this year, they’ve both won majors, so it’s an opportunity for us to pay our respects and pay tribute to them and what they’ve achieved over the past 12 months.”
Sutherland said LIV Golf, a breakaway tournament from the US PGA, which has given players such as Smith and Leishman more time and freedom to pick and choose where they play, had not been the driver behind this summer’s strong fields.
Instead, he said Golf Australia had worked extremely hard to make its major tournaments fit in better with the world schedule, and pointed to Smith and Scott as former Australian PGA Championship winners who had regularly supported the Australian schedule previously.
“I don’t think there’s any relevance to LIV,” he said.
“I think they’ve wanted to come home but the last two summers they haven’t been able to come home.
“There’s an opportunity, as much as anything, for them to visit family and friends, but also it’s an opportunity to come back and support our summer and our tour and I think judging from the conversations I’ve had with them and their management along the way, they’re desperately looking forward to coming back and playing some golf here.”
As Smith gears up for the Australian summer, he took aim at the organisers of the four majors, pleading with them to let LIV players compete next year.
“I think the majors really have to stand above all the politics,” Smith told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
“If they really want the best product and the best players playing against each other in the world, they have to let us play. There’s no reason other than playing another tour that should suggest we shouldn’t play.”
Meanwhile, Sutherland said he hoped this window could become an annual drawcard for Australia’s best to come home.
“I think those sorts of players are very conscious about the role the local PGA Tour of Australasia has had in developing them and providing them with career opportunities to progress into other tours,” he said.
Ticket sales have been strong for the Open, which Golf Australia runs, and Sutherland said it was a great opportunity for those new to golf to see the world’s best up close.
“While we’ve been cancelling professional events, the number of people in Australia that have played or come back to golf, the number of members at golf clubs, the game had never seen growth like this,” he said.
“There has been quite a bit of sport on in the last few weeks, with obviously footy and then spring carnival and the T20 World Cup, but I think people are starting to turn their eyes to these two big golf events. Tickets sales have been strong because of the announcement of key players, but as things approach, we’re pretty confident things will only step up more.”
As for the announcement of a LIV Golf event in Adelaide next year, Sutherland said that was good news for golf fans.
“The facts of the matter are we don’t get a lot of big events where some of the best players in the world come and play,” he said.
“The Presidents Cup is probably the primary example, but that’s an eight to 12-year cycle of coming back to Australia.
“Certainly, the one that was here in 2019 was a tremendous event and in the absence of that and other events from the PGA tour, a LIV event is more golf for Australian golf fans, and some pretty handy players including Cam Smith are amongst their field.”
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