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, long co-sanctioned by the

Ladies European Tour The Ladies European Tour is a professional golf tour for women which was founded in 1978. It is based at Buckinghamshire Golf Club near London in England. Like many UK-based sports organisations it is a company limited by guarantee, a legal str ...

(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 wee ...

. 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 U.S. dollars. 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 ...

'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

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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 me ...

. 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 The RACV Gold Coast Challenge was a golf tournament played in Australia. It was one of the leading tournaments on the ALPG Tour and was co-sanctioned by the Ladies European Tour (LET) since 2001. Between 1997 and 2000 it was an event on the LPGA ...

, 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

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competitions in

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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

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, 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 identified ...

. 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: Wills 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: AAMI 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 Source:

Winners

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

Course record

References

External links

*
Coverage on the LPGA Tour's official siteCoverage on the Ladies European Tour's official siteCoverage on the Ladies ALPG Tour's official site
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