Golf Australia has declared a “high level of interest” from top international players to join back-to-back Masters champion Rory McIlroy in this year’s Australian Open field at Kingston Heath, which will provide a preview of the layout to be used for the 2028 Presidents Cup.
McIlroy will again return to Australia as the headline act for the Open in early December as part of his confirmed two-year commitment after the Northern Irishman generated plenty of buzz with his appearance at Royal Melbourne last year.
After he sampled several of Melbourne’s famed sandbelt courses in the lead-up to the 2025 event, McIlroy revealed Kingston Heath was his top pick and its 10th hole as his “favourite par 3 in the world”.
Launching this year’s event at the Cheltenham course on Friday, Golf Australia confirmed it would use the same course layout at the Australian Open which will be used for the Presidents Cup when the event comes to Melbourne in two years’ time.
Amid the “halo effect” of McIlroy’s commitment and the selling point of the Presidents Cup course, Golf Australia chief executive James Sutherland was confident the event would attract more big international names.
“I’m not going to give too much away at this stage, but there are advanced discussions going on with a whole lot of players,” Sutherland said.
“We worked really closely with the DP World Tour and the local tour here … to recruit players and we are very optimistic that we will have a fantastic field come December.
“Our starting point is to always have conversations with the big name Australian players on the international tour. They have great pride in their national open and also our golf courses and they love encouraging their international mates to come out and I think last year we gave them a real reason to be even greater advocates.
“The indications are really strong that we are going to have some very good golfers, some very solid top 50 players in the world.”
McIlroy finished in a tie for 14th place at seven-under-par in last year’s event at Royal Melbourne, but Sutherland said the impact of his attendance continued to be felt.
“There is a huge halo effect that Rory brings,” Sutherland said as he announced global trading platform capital.com as a title partner of the Australian Open.
“He brought that last year to the tournament locally with fans and ticket sales and the atmosphere and I think that was coupled with playing at Royal Melbourne and it’s the same playing here at Kingston Heath.
“There is a real afterglow …. people not only noticed the event last year but they are talking about it.
“There is a delay factor that gets people to think about coming out this year and based on the conversations going on, there is a high level of interest from some pretty good players.
“What we want to be is one of the very great golf tournaments in the world.”
Golf Australia said it had been liaising with the PGA Tour in the United States about the course layout ahead of the Presidents Cup.
“We have been working very closely with Kingston Heath and also the PGA Tour in the US and we will be playing what will be the President’s Cup routing,” GA’s general manager of major events and operations Antonia Beggs said.
“So it’s the first time that the Australian Open will be played in this way.
“But we are super excited because the PGA Tour has spent a lot of time working out how they’re going to play it and considering it is only in two years time, anything we can do to assist them in making that the best tournament possible.
“From a player field perspective, being able to say to the US players and the international players that we are going to be playing the same layout as what will happen in 2028 will be really appealing for them.”
Golf Australia said it would cap attendance for the event at 25,000 spectators per day in a bid to enhance the fan experience.
South Australia has secured hosting rights for the men’s Australian Open from 2028 at the redeveloped North Adelaide Golf Course amid uncertainty over the future of LIV Golf.
North Adelaide will host an Australian Open each year from 2028 to 2034, including three men’s and three women’s events.
Sutherland said Golf Australian remained in discussions with Victoria, which has hosted the event the past two years, about future golf events on the famous sandbelt.
“We have got an amazing relationship with Visit Victoria, they are great supporters of major events here in this state, but also golf in particular,” Sutherland said.
“We continue to have constructive discussions with them about what the future looks like. How that unfolds time will tell.”