Golf Australia boss James Sutherland expects player interest in the Australian Open to skyrocket on the back of an ongoing Rory McIlroy “halo effect”.<\/p>\n
McIlroy will return to Melbourne in December to chase a second Open crown, eight months after becoming the first player since Tiger Woods to win back-to-back Masters green jackets.<\/p>\n
It is part of a two-year commitment from the current world No.2, whose appearance at Royal Melbourne last year set off a surge in international interest.<\/p>\n
“There’s a huge halo effect that Rory brings,” GA chief executive Sutherland said at the 2026 Open launch at host course Kingston Heath on Friday.<\/p>\n
“He brought that last year to the tournament locally and with fans and ticket sales and the atmosphere.<\/p>\n
“That was coupled with playing at Royal Melbourne and it’s the same with playing here at Kingston Heath.<\/p>\n
“There’s a real afterglow and a delay factor – people not only noticed the event last year but they’re talking about it.”<\/p>\n
Sutherland did not confirm any other high-profile international participants for the 2026 Open, but expects another hot field.<\/p>\n
Australian stars Cameron Smith, Adam Scott and Min Woo Lee headlined last year’s event with McIlroy.<\/p>\n
“We think the demand for players to play is going to be higher than it’s ever been,” Sutherland said.<\/p>\n
McIlroy won the 2013 Open at Royal Sydney and was tied for 14th behind Denmark’s Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen last year.<\/p>\n
In a video message, the Northern Irishman said he was excited about the prospect of returning to Melbourne in December.<\/p>\n
“I always have a great time in Australia,” McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
“(It has) some of the best golf in the world and I can’t wait to get back down there and play in front of everyone.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Golf Australia boss James Sutherland expects player interest in the Australian Open to skyrocket on the back of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-672402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672402","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=672402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}