The Women's Australian Open is a women's professional

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

tournament played in Australia, operated by

Golf Australia Golf Australia is the governing body for the sport of golf in Australia, formed in 2006 after the Australian Golf Union (AGU) and Women's Golf Australia (WGA) agreed to merge.

and the

WPGA Tour of Australasia The WPGA Tour of Australasia, formerly known as the ALPG Tour, is a professional golf tour for women which is based in Australia. WPGA stands for Women's Professional Golfers' Association. The tour was founded as the Ladies Professional Golf Associ ...

, long co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour (LET). Beginning with the 2012 event, it is also co-sanctioned by the U.S.-based

LPGA Tour The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) is an American organization for female golfers. The organization is headquartered at the LPGA International in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is best known for running the LPGA Tour, a series of week ...

. In 2008, it was the second-richest women's golf tournament on the ALPG Tour, with a prize fund of A$500,000, and was raised to A$600,000 in 2010. With the co-sanctioning by the LPGA, the total purse was nearly doubled, and was also fixed in

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. The purse was US$1.1 million in 2012, and increased again to its current level of US$1.2 million for 2013. Since 2011, the tournament's name has been the ISPS Handa Women's Australian Open. The Australian Ladies Open was founded in 1974 as a 54-hole event, but folded after 1978. It was resurrected in 1994 as the Women's Australian Open, this time as a 72-hole event.

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won that year, which was her first professional win. It was also

Karrie Webb Karrie Ann Webb (born 21 December 1974) is an Australian professional golfer. She plays mainly on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour, and also turns out once or twice a year on the ALPG Tour in her home country. She is a member of the World Golf Hall of F ...

's professional debut, and she would later win the event five times. Starting in 2000, the Ladies European Tour began co-sanctioning the tournament. Following the 2004 event, sponsorship difficulties caused the tournament to stop once again, but after a two-year hiatus the tournament returned in 2007. The Women's Australian Open usually moves between various courses around Australia, except from 1995 through 2002 when it was held at the Yarra Yarra Golf Club in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. The 2008 event was held at Kingston Heath Golf Club. For several years after its return in 1994, the Women's Australian Open was played early in the ALPG schedule, usually in November. Starting in 2000, it was changed to be played at the end of the schedule in February near the ANZ Ladies Masters, to allow both tournaments to be part of the Ladies European Tour. Since the Women's Australian Open was played from 12 to 15 November 1998 during the 1998/1999 ALPG season, it was therefore not played during the 1999 calendar year. The 2012 tournament was played at the Composite Course at Royal Melbourne, the championship course comprising 12 holes from the West course and six from the East course. The Composite Course is considered one of the top courses in the world, and was used for the

Presidents Cup The Presidents Cup is a series of men's golf matches between a team representing the United States and an International Team representing the rest of the world minus Europe. Europe competes against the United States in a similar but considerably ...

competitions in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

and 2011. Through 2011, a women's professional competition had never been held on it; the 2012 Women's Australian Open was the first. The event was won by

Jessica Korda Jessica Regina Korda ( cs, Jessica Kordová) (born February 27, 1993) is an Czech-American professional golfer who plays on the LPGA Tour. Amateur career Korda was a member of the 2009 U.S. Junior Solheim Cup and the 2010 U.S. Curtis Cup teams. ...

after an historic six-player playoff, only the second in ALPG history. Korda holed a birdie putt on the second playoff hole to claim her first LPGA Tour victory. In 2013, the tournament moved to

Royal Canberra Golf Club The Canberra Golf Club, later known as the Royal Canberra Golf Club, was formed in 1926. Its original grounds were behind the Hotel Canberra on the river flats on both sides of the Molonglo River. History The club's Club House was on a site n ...

, and in 2014 to the

Victoria Golf Club The Victoria Golf Club is a golf course located in the city of Oak Bay, British Columbia, Canada, which is part of metropolitan Victoria. It was established in 1893, and is now the oldest golf club in Canada still located on its original site; a ...

near Melbourne. In 2016 the event moved to Adelaide and was played there until 2020. In 2021, it was not played due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. In 2022, the tournament was played at

and Kingston Heath Golf Club. In a world-first for golf, the ISPS Handa Australian Open brought together the national men's and women's Open events, along with the All Abilities Championship. The men's Open and the women's Open had equal prize money of as the Open returned to Melbourne for the first time in several years. In 2022, the event fell during the LPGA's off-season and during the tour's final stage of qualifying school and therefore co-sanctioning the event with the LPGA was not possible.

Tournament names

*1974:

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Australian Ladies Open *1975–1978: Wills

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Australian Ladies Open *1994–1996: Holden Women's Australian Open *1997:

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Women's Australian Open *1998–2004:

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Women's Australian Open *2007–20: MFS Women's Australian Open *2009: Women's Australian Open *2010: Handa Women's Australian Open *2011–present: ISPS Handa Women's Australian Open

2020 course layout

Royal Adelaide Golf Club The Royal Adelaide Golf Club (often referred to as Seaton) is a private Australian golf club located in the Adelaide suburb of Seaton, northwest of the city centre. The links at Seaton has been the venue for many international and interstate ...

Source:

Winners

¹Tournament shortened to 36 holes due to rain
^POWon after playoff

Course record

References

External links