[PHOTO: Getty Images]
Masters champion Rory McIlroy has been locked in to make a competitive return Down Under to play in the Australian Open for two years in a mega coup for the country’s golf landscape.
This year, Royal Melbourne’s famed Composite course will welcome the five-time major winner and 155 other players from December 4-7. McIlroy will return a year later and tee up at the 2026 edition at the iconic Kingston Heath.
After months of negotiations between McIlroy’s camp and organisers Golf Australia, the Northern Irishman green lighted his first Australian Open appearance since 2014, when he was the defending champion having defeated Adam Scott at Royal Sydney in 2013.
Securing McIlroy’s signature comes after a renewed partnership between tournament organisers and the Victorian Government and Visit Victoria.
“I’m proud to be committing to the Australian Open for the next two years, especially with it being played on the world-class Melbourne Sandbelt, somewhere I’ve always wanted to play professionally” McIlroy said via a media release. “The success of the Australian Open is important for the global game, and I’m incredibly confident it will thrive again this year, especially with it being staged in one of the world’s great sporting cities and on two of the finest golf courses in the world over the next two years: the Royal Melbourne Golf Club and Kingston Heath Golf Club. Melbourne is known for being one of the world’s great sporting cities and I can’t wait to be part of that atmosphere and soak in everything it has to offer, both on and off the course.”
Tournament officials are also hopeful of having PGA Tour winner Min Woo Lee, as well as major champions Cameron Smith and Scott back to play in the 121-year-old championship.
Golf Australia chief executive James Sutherland said the backing of the Victorian Government and McIlroy will help elevate the men’s Australian Open to new heights.
“The Victorian Government truly understands the value that golf brings to the local economy. We appreciate their ongoing support and we look forward to partnering with them again as we host this year’s men’s Australian Open,” Sutherland said.
”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.”
McIlroy had repeatedly lauded the Australian Open during the past 18 months particularly, saying at last year’s Dubai Desert Classic that he would love to see the Australian Open become one of the world’s biggest tournaments in the future. “The Australian Open, for example, should almost be the fifth major. The market down there is huge with potential. They love golf. They love sport. They have been starved of top-level golf. And the courses are so good.”
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.
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.
A host to three Presidents Cups, The Royal Melbourne Golf Club will stage the men’s Australian Open for the 17th time but the first men’s Australian Open since 1991. 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 on a composite version of Royal Melbourne, whose West course is course perennially ranked in the top five golf in the world according to Golf Digest US.
In February at LIV Golf Adelaide, 2022 Open champion Smith said the ideal 2025 Australian Open would be in Melbourne. “I mean, because [Melbourne has] some great golf courses that I think people want to play,” Smith said when asked why he wants the Open back on the Sandbelt. “Not only do we want to come down and play and obviously support our event, I think it lends itself to having a stronger field, having more guys come down here and play the Australian Open, and let it be the event that it once was. You look at the names on that trophy through the ’80s and ’90s, it’s incredible, and it seems like somewhere that got lost. I definitely want it to be the best event it can be and be the fifth major. It would be unbelievable.”
Australian Golf Digest has reported extensively on the subject, having asked Golf Australia chief executive James Sutherland at Augusta National a month ago at the Masters what his inspiration was for this year’s Australian Open, which has been split up after three years of running the men’s and women’s Opens concurrently on the same two host courses.
Sutherland was hopeful that former British Open champion Smith and his fellow LIV players such as Lucas Herbert and Marc Leishman would return.
“The LIV golfers don’t play as much [as the PGA Tour at that time of year]… we’ll definitely talk to them and I’ve spoken to Cam and his teammates, they’re a tight group,” he said at Augusta. “Getting them interested is one thing but there’s significant fees in bringing [other LIV golfers] down. It’s trying to work out how that comes together. But we want it to have an international flavour.”
