We’ve gone 10 years without the Australian Masters, yet whispers persist. Is the storied event finished, or awaiting a revival?
About halfway through this issue, you’ll find a brief reference from Adam Scott to one of Australian golf’s absent friends.
This month marks 10 years since the last Australian Masters was held, with 56-year-old Peter Senior holding off an American amateur named Bryson DeChambeau to win his third gold jacket at Huntingdale Golf Club [above].
A tournament that began as the invention of schoolteacher David Inglis in 1979 would go on to become a staple of the tournament scene in Australia throughout the 1980s, ’90s and 2000s. With winners the calibre of Greg Norman, Graham Marsh, Bernhard Langer, Mark O’Meara and Ian Baker-Finch in its first decade, the foundations were there for the tournament to become a mainstay on the PGA Tour of Australasia – which it did, until 2015.
The Australian Masters was never officially pronounced dead; it just disappeared from the local schedule. Those of us in the media were told it was being “re-imagined”, a diversionary word that was probably an easier message to disseminate than “cancelled”. And, if the tournament truly is being re-imagined, how long does “re-imagining” take?
If you detect a touch of cynicism, it’s because I always had a soft spot for the Aussie Masters. The old February date saw mighty Huntingdale at its best. Norman seemed to win every year when I was a kid (he did own a 50 percent strike rate – winning six of the first 12 – for a while) and when he didn’t win, it was usually a household name who did. The tournament would never be the equal of its all-consuming American counterpart in Georgia, but that didn’t matter. Our Masters was forming an identity of its own.
That identity was diminished somewhat when the decision was made to rotate the tournament across the Melbourne Sandbelt. Yes, seeing action on more elite courses was a bonus and taking it to Kingston Heath in 2009 helped lure Tiger Woods to play (along with about $3 million), but I’d argue most people’s memories are of the Huntingdale editions [see panel]. A host of naming-rights sponsors came and went, but eventually the whole thing just… went.
A decade on, one wonders if the tournament scene in Australia will ever see a return of the Australian Masters. The 10-day window between the first round of the Australian PGA and the final putt dropping at the Australian Open feels too short. A third significant event – and the subsequent rebirth of golf’s ‘Triple Crown’ – would bolster our Summer of Golf. No doubt galleries would support it but, more pressingly, would corporate Australia?
Whispers abound, some louder than others, yet nothing substantial has materialised in the way of a comeback. The tournament remains under the IMG umbrella, however 10 years of inaction raises questions about the management heavyweight’s desire to revive it.
So, the time may be right for another buyer or consortium to breathe life back into one of the most cherished golf tournaments we have. Or had.
Few would object to the gold jacket being known once again for something other than the prize for winning the mythical Tour Championship on “Happy Gilmore”.
Top 5 Australian Masters moments
5. Nathan Green’s ace with a 5-iron on Huntingdale’s 12th hole that earned him $500,000 with one swing in 2001.
4. Bradley Hughes’ epic 3-iron to kick-in distance on the 72nd hole to force a playoff (that he’d win) in 1993.
3. Tiger Woods electrifying the fairways of Kingston Heath en route to winning the gold jacket in 2009.
2. Robert Allenby sealing the Triple Crown with victory in 2005 [see page 34].
1. The David vs Goliath-like battle between Peter Senior and Greg Norman in 1991 that Senior won in a last-hole thriller.
Photograph by Quinn rooney/Getty Images
