[PHOTO: Getty Images]
Masters champion and career grand slam winner Rory McIlroy’s commitment to play in the Australian Open in Melbourne has blown tournament officials away with “unprecedented” ticket sales coming in the first 24 hours.
In the first full day since it was revealed Wednesday morning that the Northern Irishman would return to Australia for the Open at Royal Melbourne’s Composite course December 4–7, tournament organiser Golf Australia observed the biggest single day of ticket sales in the event’s 121-year history.
McIlroy is currently in Charlotte, North Carolina contesting the PGA Championship, the first major since his green jacket triumph.
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At most major sporting events including golf’s Australian Open, a tournament which dates back to 1904, it is estimated 60–65 per cent of ticket sales are clipped during event week. The Australian Open is a little more than six months away from teeing off and is on track for record crowds. In addition to overall ticket sales, hospitality suites at Royal Melbourne – a 36-hole club comprised of the famed West course and its adjoining East layout – during the Open have almost sold out.
Royal Melbourne had not staged the Open since 1991 and in that time it had welcomed three Presidents Cups (1998, 2011, 2017).
Head of major events for Golf Australia and the PGA of Australia, Antonia Beggs, was a key figure in helping land McIlroy’s signature having known the superstar and his team during her 15 years at the DP World Tour. That stint included Beggs running the Irish Open when McIlroy’s foundation was the host. She also oversaw several Ryder Cups, for which the DP World Tour runs on the European side.
Beggs was both surprised and unsurprised to see the ticket sales on day one given the starpower of the 29-time PGA Tour winner McIlroy, whose Augusta National victory last month ensured he became the sixth winner of all four majors and first since Tiger Woods in 2000.
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“Rory, especially off the back of his Masters win, has a huge following, and he transcends golf,” Beggs told Australian Golf Digest on Thursday. “When you announce him coming, not only do you get a wonderful support from your golfing audience, but it speaks to bigger sports fans and event-goers. The tickets were selling to the extent that we had sold out of one of our hospitality products, by 3pm yesterday. So we had to find more. Normally, that would sell out in September [for a December Australian Open].”
In 2013, McIlroy used his Stonehaven Cup victory to lift himself out of a year-long slump and into the form that saw him win two majors in 2014. He went through a much-publicised drought for 11 years after that until a long-awaited fifth major came in dramatic fashion at last month’s Masters, where his green jacket victory elevated him into an illustrious club of career grand slam winners.
After months of negotiations between McIlroy’s camp andGolf Australia, McIlroy will make his first Australian Open appearance since 2014, when he was the defending champion having defeated Adam Scott at Royal Sydney in 2013.
Added Beggs: “I was lucky enough to work at the DP World Tour for over 15 years and I ran six Irish opens when Rory was the host the tournament host. [I asked McIlroy’s management team] ,’Would Rory ever consider coming?’ And the answer was like, ‘Absolutely yes.’ The foundations had been set in stone by great golf courses, a great country for sporting events, a national open and something that Rory really respects and loves.”
The Ulsterman, an avid golf course architecture fan and proud former winner of our Stonehaven Cup, had repeatedly lauded the tournament during the past 18 months. Although, he had never teed up as a professional in Melbourne or Victoria for that matter. He did contest the 2005 Australian Open at Moonah Links as an amateur. “I would love to see the Australian Open become one of the world’s biggest tournaments in the future,” McIlroy said in 2024. “The Australian Open, for example, should almost be the fifth major. The market down there is huge with potential. They have been starved of top-level golf. And the courses are so good.”
As Beggs said, Australia’s internationally celebrated courses on the Melbourne Sandbelt, such as world No.5 Royal Melbourne, were what helped get McIlroy over the line. “Rory never made a secret of the fact how much he loves the playing golf in Australia and the and his love of national opens ,so as much as I’d love to take credit, ultimately, it’s really Australia and its position on the global stage and having unbelievable golf courses on the Sandbelt,” Beggs told Australian Golf Digest. “The prestige of the Australian Open, with the previous winners including Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Rory himself. All of that culminates in Rory talking favourably about the tournament. We’re also co-sanctioned with the DP World Tour and have a great relationship. They’ve been incredibly supportive of the Open and its journey.”
Golf Australia chief executive James Sutherland and other officials took note, such as the Victorian Government. “We’re absolutely delighted that the Victorian government’s come to the party to support it,” he said.
Speculation was rife that McIlroy was paid between $A3–4 million but one golf source said it was nowhere close to that figure, which Tiger Woods was rumoured to have been paid to appear at the 2009 and 2010 Australian Masters on the Melbourne Sandbelt.
Sutherland credited the Victorian Government and McIlroy for helping elevate the Australian Open to new heights. ”Rory McIlroy, one of the best to ever play our game, playing on the world-renowned Melbourne Sandbelt, is a mouth-watering proposition for golf fans. We are committed to elevating the status of our national championship, and this announcement is a significant step in that direction.”
Meanwhile, tournament officials are also hopeful of having PGA Tour winner Min Woo Lee, as well as major champions Cameron Smith and Scott, Marc Leishman, Lucas Herbert and other homegrown stars back to play.
McIlroy’s signature will no doubt boost the Australian Open field, as other golf stars see the appeal of playing with him on the Melbourne Sandbelt, and that will likely have a flow-on effect to the Australian PGA Championship the week beforehand as tour pros look to make a two-tournament DP World Tour swing out of their trip Down Under.
McIlroy won the Masters last month to complete the career grand slam having already claimed the US Open, Open Championship and two PGA Championship titles in his career.
McIlroy and US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau are the two biggest stars in golf and having the reigning Masters champion in McIlroy playing on the country’s most famous golf course is a gargantuan boost for golf in Australia. It will be a significant economic boost for Victoria’s economy given travellers will likely come from interstate and even overseas to watch the world’s biggest golf star play at Royal Melbourne.
