Australian Open, not Players Championship, should be golf’s fifth major

Final week, earlier than The Open Championship, Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee made the case for The Gamers Championship turning into golf’s fifth main.

I’m right here to let you know that one other occasion ought to carry this distinction: the Australian Open, not The Gamers.

Elements of Chamblee’s argument rested on his animus in the direction of LIV Golf, whereas different stable factors he made stemmed from the wealthy historical past of The Gamers.

“LIV has managed to poach some compelling gamers away from the PGA Tour, and it’s made the majors extra compelling,” Chamblee mentioned on Golf Channel’s Reside From set.

Photograph by Andrew Redington/Getty Photos

“There needs to be extra sting in defecting away from the PGA Tour. I can’t consider a greater means to do this than make the Gamers Championship a significant. It ought to have been a significant eons in the past, and I imagine it’s. Nevertheless it ought to have that designation.”

The Gamers Championship has lengthy had one of many strongest fields in all of golf and is yearly contested at TPC Sawgrass every spring in Ponta Vedra Seaside, Florida.

Yearly, pundits like Chamblee argue whether or not or not The Gamers needs to be thought of a significant championship.

However golf is a recreation performed everywhere in the world.

The US already hosts three main championships, so why not observe tennis and add a significant within the land down below?

“Australia is a sports-mad nation. Golf is a kind of sports activities we love!” mentioned Luke Elvy, Australian broadcaster and journalist. “Like the remainder of the world, participation in golf had been dwindling pre-Covid however has grown considerably since. The pandemic growth has been additional boosted by Cameron Smith and Minjee Lee successful main championships in 2022.”

Golf in Australia has an extended and wealthy historical past, with tens of millions of Aussies enjoying the game yearly.

The land down below has additionally produced many world-class gamers, together with a pair who lately gained among the greatest championships in golf.

Photograph by Daniel Pockett/Getty Photos

Smith, who hails from Brisbane, gained the Claret Jug final yr at St. Andrew’s. He fended off the likes of Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, and Cameron Younger to win his first main championship.

Lee, in the meantime, was born and raised in Perth on Australia’s west coast. She gained the 2022 Ladies’s U.S. Open at Pine Needles and the 2021 Evian Championship, one other LPGA main performed in France.

Different main winners from Australia embrace Greg Norman, Adam Scott, Jason Day, and Karrie Webb, all of whom are recognizable to golf followers all over the world.

“Australia has contributed to golf’s ecosystem for over a century and can proceed to take action,” Elvy added. “To ignore a nation with world-class gamers and programs is just to the detriment of the sport’s leaders.”

Again within the day, Australia’s greatest match, the Australian Open, was a marquee occasion on the golf calendar, sometimes performed in November or December—the height of the Aussie summer season.

A few of the recreation’s greatest legends, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, and Norman, have all gained the Stonehaven Cup, the trophy given yearly to the winner of the Australian Open.

Greg Wooden/Getty Photos

“The Australian Open has over 100 years of historical past,” Elvy famous. “It was thought of the ‘fifth main’ throughout the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties when legendary businessman Kerry Packer bankrolled the sphere.”

However because the early Nineteen Nineties, the Australian Open has misplaced its luster.

“I actually don’t know, in all probability an absence of cash,” Elvy mentioned when requested why the PGA Tour has had no everlasting presence in Australia. “The PGA Tour has hosted three President’s Cups in Australia—in 1998, 2011, and 2019—and is scheduled once more in 2028. All of them have been overwhelming successes as a result of Australians love world-class sports activities!”

Whereas overlooking Australia, the PGA Tour has staged occasions in South Korea, Japan, China, Mexico, and Scotland within the twenty first century.

South Korea, Japan, and China all rank among the many top-12 greatest economies on this planet, with the latter two becoming a member of the USA as having the three largest outputs of gross home product (GDP).

So loads of industrial alternative exists in every of these nations.

However those self same prospects exist in Australia, the thirteenth largest financial system and a rustic with one of many highest GDPs per capita.

But, the higher echelons {of professional} golf have let Australia go by the wayside.

Unitil LIV Golf stuffed that void final April.

The Saudi-backed tour staged a match in Adelaide—Australia’s fifth-largest metropolis—and lots of have known as this occasion its most profitable match up to now.

Photograph by Mark Brake/Getty Photos

The Grange Membership performed host, because the likes of Smith, Phil Mickelson, and Brooks Koepka, amongst different LIV Golf stars, teed it up in entrance of large crowds.

Tens of hundreds of Australians confirmed as much as watch, because the match rapidly became one massive celebration, with American Talor Gooch successful in the long run.

“Australians are starved of seeing world-class gamers usually,” Elvy added.

“[LIV Golf CEO] Greg Norman knew an occasion can be an enormous success as a result of he is aware of our ardour for the sport. Golf in Australia has been carried by the likes of Adam Scott, Cam Smith, and March Leishman over the past decade—and to a lesser extent Jason Day as a result of he hardly ever returns.”

Photograph by David Cannon/Getty Photos

“Sure, we have now had glimpses of greatness like Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, and Jordan Spieth, however we wish to see the perfect of the perfect compete usually. LIV introduced the perfect area to Australia outdoors of these three Presidents Cups because the halcyon days of the Nineteen Seventies and Eighties.”

In 2011, among the finest gamers on this planet competed within the Australian Open, held the week earlier than Royal Melbourne hosted the President’s Cup.

“Once I was internet hosting Australian Open TV protection, we had a star-studded area on the 2011 Australian Open,” Elvy reminisced. “I requested Tiger concerning the nice checklist of champions on the Stonehaven Cup, and he mentioned, ‘I wish to get my title on that trophy.’ He completed third behind [Australian] Greg Chalmers that yr, however the crowds had been monumental!”

Woods by no means did win the Australian Open, however when McIlroy returned to the land down below in 2013, he emerged victorious.

Spieth then gained in file style the next yr.

“What an unbelievable honor to place my title on this trophy,” Spieth mentioned after his Australian Open victory in 2014. “With these situations, the golf course could be very tough. It’s undoubtedly the perfect spherical I’ve ever performed and the perfect win I’ve ever had.”

Spieth went on to win The Masters and the U.S. Open in 2015 and The Open in 2017.

Photograph by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Photos

He then gained the Australian Open once more in 2016.

McIlroy, Spieth, and the perfect gamers on this planet ought to proceed to play on the Australian Open annually, simply as Nicklaus, Palmer, and Watson used to.

Ought to they journey to Australia yearly, gamers will discover among the most passionate sports activities followers on the planet and uncover among the world’s finest programs too.

The famed sand-belt area round Melbourne has 5 programs ranked amongst Golf Digest’s Prime 100 on this planet.

Royal Melbourne is probably probably the most well-known of Australia’s programs, because it boasts the identical architect who designed Augusta Nationwide: Alister MacKenzie.

Photograph by David Cannon/Getty Photos

Kingston Heath—host of the 2028 President’s Cup, Metropolitan Golf Membership, Victoria Golf Membership, and Peninsula Kingswood Nation Membership even have the pedigree to host the world’s finest golfers sooner or later.

Every of those programs sits inside metropolitan Melbourne, one in every of Australia’s largest cities and one of many nice cities in the complete world.

From a financial standpoint, Melbourne has no scarcity of company alternatives.

The identical may be mentioned for Sydney, maybe probably the most well-known metropolis in Australia.

Larger Sydney additionally has a formidable repertoire of golf programs, which embrace The Australian Golf Membership, not removed from world well-known Bondi Seaside.

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The Lakes Golf Membership and New South Wales Golf Membership, positioned round Sydney, have additionally hosted Australian Opens.

Loads of programs can host this prestigious championship, just like how the R&A has a chosen ‘rota’ of golf equipment that host The Open annually.

However now that The Open has come and gone, {the golfing} world has to attend 258 days till The Masters begins subsequent April.

The Australian Open would assist fill that void in November, December, or early February—at no matter time most accurately fits golf’s new skilled world order.

For the reason that PGA Tour agreed to do enterprise with the Saudi Arabian Public Funding Fund (PIF), this new governing physique ought to work to develop the sport of golf globally.

A method to take action is by making the Australian Open a significant championship.

Get the perfect gamers on this planet to compete for the Stonehaven Cup.

Heck, even Nicklaus referred to the Australian Open as a “fifth main” in a 2016 interview with Australian Golf Digest.

So to the powers that be, have a look at what LIV Golf completed in Adelaide. The Australian Open may very well be a lot larger, a lot grander than that occasion.

Aussies have been starved for many years; it’s time to feed them with one thing they deserve: a significant championship.

Jack Milko is a golf employees author for SB Nation’s Taking part in By way of. You possibly can observe him on Twitter @jack_milko for extra golf protection. Make sure you take a look at @_PlayingThrough too.