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<\/p>\nAussie of the month: Australian Open<\/p>\n
The Australian Open is back! Modern attendance records were smashed when more than 112,000 fans came through the gates during the week of the Crown Australian Open at Royal Melbourne Golf Club. It reinforces that great tournament venues matter, as the Open returning to Royal Melbourne\u2019s Composite course for the first time in 34 years was at least a strong part of the appeal for Masters champion Rory McIlroy to travel to Australia after a long, globetrotting year.<\/p>\n
For a large portion of the rest of the strong DP World Tour\/PGA Tour of Australasia field, Augusta National extending the winner an invitation to the 2026 Masters boosted our national open more than we know, while the R&A continues to support the Australian Open by awarding places in the Open Championship to the top three on the leaderboard not already exempt. With McIlroy returning to Australia in December to tee up at Kingston Heath, it\u2019s now up to tournament organisers to capitalise on this momentum.<\/p>\n
Golfers in the news<\/p>\n
26th Open in \u201926: Adam Scott will turn 46 during the 154th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale this July, where he will make his 26th consecutive appearance at the links major. Although 2025 was not among his standout seasons, with no PGA Tour top-10s and missed cuts in three majors, the 2013 Masters champion steadied late in the year at home in Australia. Scott finished seventh at the Australian PGA and fifth at the Australian Open at Royal Melbourne. That result qualified him,
Si Woo Kim and Michael Hollick for next year\u2019s Open at Royal Birkdale. Scott\u2019s first appearance at The Open came in 2000 at St Andrews and he\u2019s teed it up every year since, excluding 2020 when the championship was cancelled.<\/p>\n
Australia\u2019s newest DP World Tour member: Self-described as a \u201cScossie\u201d, Connor McKinney was born in Kirkcaldy, close to the Home of Golf at St Andrews, but emigrated to Western Australia when he was 13. McKinney won both the Australian Amateur and the St Andrews Links Trophy in his final year as an amateur in 2022.<\/p>\n
He turned professional that year and has since played most of his golf on the PGA Tour of Australasia. Now, he\u2019s earned something of a homecoming to Europe and the UK \u2013 McKinney is exempt on the DP World Tour having advanced through all three stages of qualifying school. His confidence at Q-School was fuelled by a maiden professional victory on Scotland\u2019s Tartan Pro Tour in August.<\/p>\n
heND ON TOP: The durability of Scott Hend is one of the more unheralded stories in Australian golf circles. The 52-year-old globetrotter captured a second European Legends Tour Order of Merit title despite playing a mere 15 tournaments during the 2025 season.<\/p>\n
ANother Smith was at the Australian PGA: Mitchell Smith capped a remarkable week at the Heritage Golf & Country Club in November by taking out the PGA Professionals Championship and securing the Vicars Shield by a single stroke over Brody Martin. The victory earned Smith (and runner-up Martin) spots in the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Queensland.<\/p>\n
Aces of the month<\/p>\n
Quite the trio
On November 12, Sydney\u2019s Pennant Hills Golf Club witnessed a rare slice of club-golf history: three holes-in-one on the same hole, on the same day. Members Stephen Taylor, Scott Bailey and Rob Bush each aced Pennant Hills\u2019 par-3 14th hole, which measures 152 metres. The National Hole-in-One Registry lists the odds of an average golfer making an ace at about 1 in 12,500. The chances of two players making a hole-in-one on the same hole on the same day rises to approximately 1 in 17 million. A third ace in that same window defies ordinary calculation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bogey of the month<\/p>\n
So \u2018Neer\u2019 and yet so far
This doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re celebrating it, at all. I don\u2019t know anyone that wasn\u2019t cheering on Cameron Smith to win the Australian Open over his co-leader, and eventual champion, Denmark\u2019s Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen. But Smith\u2019s 72-hole hole bogey at Royal Melbourne was the most consequential bogey of the month.<\/p>\n
Firstly, Smith showed enormous character across the two Australian \u2018majors\u2019. At the Australian PGA Championship, Smith missed the cut at Royal Queensland to ensure, at that point, he had missed all seven cuts in official, 72-hole tournaments for 2025. He was emotional but vowed to get better. A week later at the Australian Open, Smith proved his goals were not making cuts, rather winning tournaments \u2013 and he very nearly claimed a maiden Australian Open to go with his three Australian PGA titles.<\/p>\n
Sadly, Smith fell one stroke short after missing a short par putt that would have forced a playoff with Neergaard-Petersen. Smith had clung to a share of the lead with a crucial birdie on the 17th hole and then found the fairway with a strong drive at the last. His safe approach to the back-left of the 18th green finished a little too far past the right flag, leaving a lengthy and brutal birdie attempt. Still, Neergaard-Petersen appeared in trouble after pushing his second shot right, wide of the bunkers. From heavy rough on \u201cDunk Island\u201d, he managed to play a delicate pitch to the tight pin and holed a curling, 15-foot par putt to complete a closing 70 and earn his first DP World Tour win. Afterwards, Smith understandably declined to speak to the media but still found time to sign autographs for children near the scoring area.<\/p>\n
Smith proved his best golf is still good enough to win tournaments with strong fields featuring Rory McIlroy. He\u2019ll be back in 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Photographs by \u00a0Graham Denholm, Josh Chadwick, WILLIAM WEST\/getty images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aussie of the month: Australian Open The Australian Open is back! Modern attendance records were smashed when more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,138978,198004,85],"class_list":["post-364053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-january-2026","tag-news-you-might-have-missed","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}