South Australia’s most unlikely golf club is back in the spotlight – this time with a tournament tailor-made for beer lovers and golfers alike.

The Coopers Mild Ale Coober Pedy Classic is exactly what it sounds like: “A golf tournament for beer drinkers, not golfers (*Unless you’re a golfer who likes beer.),” staged at the wonderfully wild Coober Pedy Opal Fields Golf Club in the heart of the SA outback. Backed by national treasure Coopers Brewery, the event leans into the larrikin spirit of both the brand and the town, promising a weekend where cold tins and hot conditions go hand in hand.

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And the prize? It’s as good as it gets.

The winner (along with a friend) will swap those barren scrapes for silky bentgrass with a dream Scottish golfing holiday – accommodation in Scotland, a tour of St Andrews Links and a round at Gleneagles, one of the world’s most celebrated golfing estates. Watch the promo video here:

Why St Andrews specifically? Well, as previously reported by Australian Golf Digest, this dusty, grassless layout 16,000 kilometres away from the Home of Golf shares one of the quirkiest connections in world golf.

Founded in 1976 in a town of just 1,500 people – famous as the opal mining capital of the world – Opal Fields is the only golf club on the planet with reciprocal rights at St Andrews. The relationship began in 2003 when a visiting TV producer arranged a satellite chat between Opal Fields president Kim Kelly and then St Andrews Links Trust general manager Alan McGregor. A tongue-in-cheek request for reciprocal rights was met with a joke: send us an opal mine.

So they did. A tiny hole in the ground and a parcel of opals arrived in Scotland. The Scots saw the humour, and reciprocals, of sorts, were granted in 2004.

The arrangement applies to the nine-hole Balgove Course and only in January – mid-winter in Scotland, peak furnace in Coober Pedy, where summer temperatures top 45°C and much of the population lives underground.

Opal Fields itself is gloriously unconventional: artificial tees, oil-and-dust “scrape” greens, fairways of mining dirt and a local rule for “rock relief”. There’s even a sign urging players to “keep off grass”.

Now, thanks to Coopers, two lucky beer lovers will trade rock relief for royal fairways – proof that sometimes the road from the outback really does lead to greener pastures.

The 2026 Coopers Mild Ale Coober Pedy Classic is an individual event. If you win the chance to play you get to bring a mate (your caddie) but only you will play the tournament round. For full T&Cs and more information on how to enter, check out: https://coopers.com.au/pages/coopers-coober-pedy-classic