Aussie of the month: Australian Opens
The east-coast stranglehold on our national championship is over. And not a moment too soon.
Golf Australia’s announcement on May 7 that Adelaide will host at least one of the two Australian Opens each year from 2028-2034 snaps a far-too-lengthy streak of hosting domination by Sydney and Melbourne golf courses. Only twice since 1974 has a non-Sydney or non-Melbourne-area venue staged the men’s championship. But that will end two-and-a-half years from now when the South Australian capital becomes the partial home for the championships.
Our governing body’s deal with the enterprising South Australian Government will see either of the championships held at North Adelaide Golf Course each year across that seven-year timeframe. The site on the fringe of the Adelaide CBD has just started a $45 million course renovation led by Greg Norman’s design firm. The project is due for completion by 2028.
It’s a smart move on several fronts. Firstly and most importantly, it displays an appetite from Golf Australia to finally venture outside our two most populous cities with the Australian Open. That should signal to Perth and Brisbane in particular that all hope is not lost. Yet tapping into the groundswell of intrigue for golf in South Australia generated by the emergence and success of LIV Golf Adelaide is smart. Riding waves of momentum makes sense, while there will be potential efficiencies to be had on the tournament setup front with the LIV event scheduled to start using the North Adelaide course from 2028 as well.
If there is a danger here, it’ll be seen underfoot. Will a freshly renovated North Adelaide layout cope with the infrastructure build and immediate heavy foot traffic from galleries so soon after reopening? Will the renovation even be completed and mature, especially when golf-course redesigns are notorious for running overtime? In 2028, we’ll know the answers.
Birdie of the month: Ruffeling feathers
In an exquisite encapsulation of golf’s modern ability to pivot, Ryan Ruffels [above] benefitted from a YouTube initiative that gave him his first start on the PGA Tour since 2022. Led by Grant Horvat and the Bryan Bros. – who have become the de-facto competitive ambassadors of YouTube golf – the Victorian pro won the second annual playing of “The Q”, a made-for-YouTube competition where the winner receives a sponsor exemption into the PGA Tour’s OneFlight Myrtle Beach Classic.
With an 18-hole strokeplay format and Shane Bacon narrating, the event felt like a PGA Tour Monday qualifier. This year, The Q was ‘content-ified’. Gone were the fringe pros nobody knows, replaced by a roster of YouTube’s biggest names. Spread across two channels – another 2026 YouTube golf trademark – the competition was close, but when the dust settled, only one man was headed to Myrtle Beach: Ruffels.
While the means of his qualification (for a sponsor exemption – yes, that is confusing) were decidedly non-traditional, Ruffels is no influencer hack. He competes against and alongside countryman Jason Day regularly on the pair’s YouTube channel, “The Lads”, was once the No.3-ranked amateur in the world, shot 66 in the 2015 Canadian Open at age 17 and recently won the All-Pro YouTube Tournament in a rout while teamed with Horvat.
Ruffels, 28, hadn’t sniffed a PGA Tour appearance since the 2022 Shriners Children’s Open, where he missed the cut. Once at Myrtle Beach, Ruffels easily made the weekend before finishing tied for 45th and banking $US11,411.
In a modern golf world where sponsor exemptions have become a hot-button issue and many YouTubers have become bigger stars than their professional counterparts regardless of skill, The Q delivers not simply entertainment, but a solution. Make sponsor exemptions – or at least one sponsor exemption – a matter of merit. Give popular golf creators a chance to test their mettle and let the chips fall where they may. – with Coleman Bentley
Golfers in the news
PGA on the move: Much like the city-shifting national championship, the BMW Australian PGA Championship is also on the move, heading to The Lakes Golf Club in Sydney this November. The harbour city hasn’t staged the 121-year-old championship since 1998, while it was 1987 when it was last staged at The Lakes.
GOING GLoBAL: Lucas Herbert can now lay claim to winning titles on every major men’s circuit after he took the individual prize at LIV Golf Virginia. The 30-year-old from Bendigo owns trophies from the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, Japan Golf Tour, Asian Tour, PGA Tour of Australasia and now LIV Golf.
Hollywood story: Apparently you can’t stop Hannah Green, either in 2026 or at the LPGA Tour’s annual stop in Los Angeles. Now a four-time tournament winner this year, Green claimed the JM Eagle LA Championship for the third time in four years, on this occasion via a three-way playoff.
Swept away: Victoria [above] completed a clean sweep of all three titles at the Australian Interstate Teams Matches at Glenelg Golf Club by beating defending champions New South Wales in a gripping final. It’s Victoria’s third overall title in the fifth edition of the combined event, adding the 2026 crown to those won in 2022 and 2024, while continuing the alternating trend with NSW, who claimed the other two titles.
It was a similar sweep in the Junior Interstate Series, only this time by the New Zealand side. The Kiwis went undefeated in all seven rounds to secure the overall and boys titles with a round to spare in their first appearance in the matches for 28 years (boys) and first ever appearance (girls).
Singapore swing: Victorian Cameron John [above, left] made it six Australians in next month’s Open Championship when he joined the field courtesy of his runner-up finish at the Asian Tour’s Singapore Open, which is part of the Open Qualifying Series.
Big boppers: Brisbane’s Ben Jeffries has advanced to the World Long Drive Championship in Nevada this October from the Australian Long Drive event at Queensland’s Carbrook Golf Club. Jeffries sealed the tour final with a winning blow of 298 metres, while Chris Charlton (292 metres) and Elly Petrie (235 metres), claimed the men’s and women’s finals, respectively.
Building blocks: Golf NSW is set to acquire Bingara Gorge Golf Course from Metro Property Development, fulfilling a long-term strategic objective to establish a flagship ‘Home of Golf’ in NSW and marking a significant step forward in establishing Wilton, on Sydney’s south-western fringe, as one of the state’s premier golf and lifestyle destinations.
Not your regular Joe: American Joe Tomek has been appointed the executive director of the 2028 Presidents Cup at Melbourne’s famous Kingston Heath Golf Club. Tomek previously spent four years in the same role for the PGA Tour’s FedEx St Jude Championship, where he oversaw all areas of tournament strategy.
Bogey of the month: Balance act
For a long time now in professional golf, the landscape has felt very much a case of either being within the USA or not, with an ultra-clear distinction between the two. Never was this dichotomy more apparent than during the raft of premature eulogies for LIV Golf by the American golf media.
Journalists and media outlets are supposed to remain impartial, but that basic tenet went out the door across that boisterous wedge of the world flanked by the North Pacific and North Atlantic oceans when word broke of the Saudi PIF withdrawing its funding of LIV Golf after 2026. By and large, the news was not met with balanced reporting in the US as instead a distinct tone of glee mixed with a substantial ‘we told you so’ vibe was clear.
They may end up being correct, and LIV may well disappear or undergo a financial rethink, but you can still report and quash your inner cheerleader.
