The International Federation of PGA Tours announced today that the player eligibility criteria for the 2018 Melbourne World Cup of Golf has been confirmed, as anticipation builds to the unique international teams event return to the famed Melbourne Sandbelt region from November 22-25, 2018 at Metropolitan Golf Club.
The Melbourne World Cup of Golf will feature two players from the top-28 nations on the world golf rankings. The 59th staging of the event will see the 56-player field vie for the largest prizemoney purse in Australian golf, with $US7 million on offer.
The makeup of the 28-team (56 players) field will be as follows:
- Top-28 available countries from the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) as of September 3, 2018.
- The top-ranked player may pick any player from the same country within the top-500 on the OWGR, or if there are fewer than five players to choose from within the top-500, may extend the range of possible choices to be at least five players (and any ties) even if ranked outside 500th.
- The deadline for the exempt players to commit is 5pm eastern USA time on Thursday, September 13, 2018.
- The deadline for the exempt player to select his partner is 5pm eastern USA time on Thursday, September 20, 2018.
The tournament format will be a 72-hole strokeplay team event with each team comprised of two players. The first and third rounds will be four-ball (best ball) play and the second and final rounds will be foursomes (alternate shot) play.
The 2018 event will mark the third-consecutive playing of the World Cup of Golf on the Melbourne Sandbelt. In 2016, Danes Søren Kjeldsen and Thorbjørn Olesen shot a final-round 66 in foursomes at Kingston Heath Golf Club to win Denmark’s first World Cup of Golf title by four strokes over the United States, China and France. Aussies Adam Scott and Jason Day were victorious at Royal Melbourne Golf Club in 2013.
The 2018 Melbourne World Cup of Golf will mark the sixth time in the tournament’s history that it will be played in Australia, which is the second-most all-time behind the United States (11).
Widely regarded as one of the finest championship courses in Australia, Metropolitan shares a common origin with Royal Melbourne Golf Club in 1891, and consistently enjoys a reputation as one of the best-conditioned and most beautiful courses in the country. Metropolitan Golf Club’s rich tournament history includes the World Golf Championships–Match Play (2001), men’s Australian Open, (1930, 1936, 1951, 1979, 1986, 1993, 1997), Australian PGA Championship (1930, 1936, 1951, 1966, 1968), Women’s Australian Open (2009) and the Australian Masters (2014).
