The Australian Masters was an annual

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 on the

PGA Tour of Australasia The PGA Tour of Australasia, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the ISPS Handa PGA Tour of Australasia, is a professional golf tour for men, owned and operated by the PGA of Australia. Official events on the tour count for World Golf Ra ...

held in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, Australia from 1979 to 2015.

History

In 1989 the International Management Group took control of the management of the tournament. Though the Australian Masters usually was part of the

's calendar, the event was not on the Order of Merit in 1992. The

requested that the field expand from 100 players to a full-field of 120 players. International Management Group (IMG), which ran the event, rejected the request. Frank Williams, an employee of IMG, justified the decision by stating, "The sponsors expect the Masters to be different from other Australian tournaments and it was sold to them as a limited-field special event." The tournament was co-sanctioned by the

European Tour The European Tour (currently known as the DP World Tour for sponsorship reasons), legally the PGA European Tour is the leading men's professional golf tour in Europe. The organisation also operates the European Senior Tour (for players aged fi ...

from 2006 to 2009, with a significant 20% increase in the prize fund. Because the tournament is played late in the calendar year, in November or December, it formed part of the following year's European Tour schedule from 2006 through 2008. With the European Tour's decision to realign its schedule with the calendar year for 2010, the 2009 event was the first to be part of the current calendar year's tour schedule. The co-sanctioning with the European Tour was dropped after the 2009 event. On 18 March 2009 the Victorian State Government announced a major coup, confirming that then World Number 1

Tiger Woods Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in PGA Tour wins, ranks second in men's major championships, and holds numerous golf records. * * * Woods is widely regarded as ...

would play in the 2009 event at its new venue, Kingston Heath. The announcement caused a minor public backlash due to 50% of Woods' A$3 million appearance fee being paid by taxpayer funds. Woods' appearance was tipped to generate close to A$20 million for the Victorian economy via tourism and other related areas. The event is owned by

IMG img or IMG is an abbreviation for image. img or IMG may also refer to: * IMG (company), global sports and media business headquartered in New York City but with its main offices in Cleveland, originally known as the "International Management Group ...

. The event was not played in 2016 and its future is reported to be in doubt. The tournament's iconic broadcast theme music used during the 1980s and 1990s was "Send Them Victorious" by Graham De Wilde, with tournament's tagline "The Tradition Continues" in use for the duration of its existence. Greg Norman won the Masters a reccord six times. The final event featured 56-year-old

Peter Senior Peter Albert Charles Senior (born 31 July 1959) is an Australian professional golfer who has won more than twenty tournaments around the world. Senior has competed mainly on the PGA Tour of Australasia, where he has had the most success and wo ...

as the champion. It was his third win in this event and became the first player to win the Australian Open, the

Australian PGA Championship The Australian PGA Championship is a golf tournament on the PGA Tour of Australasia. It is the home tournament of the Australian PGA. Since 2000 it has been held in the South East Queensland region. The tournament was part of the OneAsia Tour fro ...

and the Australian Masters all in his fifties. Future major winner who was an amateur at the time

Bryson DeChambeau Bryson James Aldrich DeChambeau (born September 16, 1993) is an American professional golfer. He has won eight times on the PGA Tour including one major championship, the 2020 U.S. Open. As an amateur, DeChambeau became the fifth player in hi ...

finished tied in second place.

Venues

Until 2008, the Australian Masters was always held at the

Huntingdale Golf Club Huntingdale Golf Club is a golf club located in Oakleigh South, Melbourne, Australia. The origins of what would become Huntingdale Golf Club began in 1924, when a Committee leased some property in Doncaster Road, Doncaster and laid out an 18-h ...

in South Oakleigh. From 2009, a rotation system was introduced and the event was staged at different courses in the

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 ...

area. The following venues have been used since the founding of the Australian Masters in 1979.

Winners

Sources:

Notes

References

External links

*
Coverage on the PGA Tour of Australasia's official site
{{Former European Tour Events Former PGA Tour of Australasia events Former European Tour events Golf tournaments in Australia Sports competitions in Melbourne Recurring sporting events established in 1979 Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2015 1979 establishments in Australia 2015 disestablishments in Australia