Rory McIlroy speaks on his return to Melbourne and the 2026 Australian Open<\/a><\/p>\nTheegala has established himself as one of the PGA Tour\u2019s most exciting players since earning his card in 2022, claiming his maiden victory at the 2023 Fortinet Championship and finishing third in the 2024 FedExCup. He has also represented the United States at the Presidents Cup and has reached a career-high No.11 in the Official World Golf Ranking.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at the names of the past winners, the players who have come to Australia and won the Australian Open, and it\u2019s a pretty impressive list,\u201d Theegala said. \u201cTo have the chance to compete for that trophy, in Melbourne, at Kingston Heath, is something I\u2019m really looking forward to.\u201d<\/p>\n
While this will be Theegala\u2019s first professional tournament in Australia, he is no stranger to Melbourne or the city\u2019s famous Sandbelt. As a 22-year-old, he won the Australian Master of the Amateurs at Victoria Golf Club in 2020, finishing four shots clear of the field and adding his name to a prestigious list of past champions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited to come back to Australia. I had such a memorable experience there as an amateur, winning the Australian Master of the Amateurs in Melbourne in 2020,\u201d Theegala said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI turned professional later that year so there\u2019s a bit of a full-circle feeling to coming back now for my first professional tournament in Australia. I\u2019ve obviously played a lot of golf and travelled to a lot of places since then, but I\u2019ve always remembered how much I enjoyed my time in Australia and how much I enjoyed the golf.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m particularly excited about Kingston Heath. I\u2019ve heard so many good things about the course and know the Melbourne Sandbelt experience from playing at Victoria Golf Club. I love playing different styles of golf courses and having to figure out how to get around them. I think it will be a really good test against a great field headed by Rory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had an awesome experience the last time I was in Melbourne, so hopefully I can come back and make some more good memories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Golf Australia chief executive James Sutherland said Theegala\u2019s addition strengthened an already outstanding Australian Open field.<\/p>\n
\u201cSahith has established himself as one of the leading young players in world golf and Australian fans will get a great opportunity to see him up close on one of our great Sandbelt courses,\u201d Sutherland said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is also a nice connection with Melbourne given Sahith won the Master of the Amateurs to complete his amateur career, so it will be great to have him return as a PGA Tour winner and try to be the latest overseas star to claim the Stonehaven Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Rory McIlroy, former Australian Open champions in Joaquin Niemann and Adam Scott, Sahith Theegala, Cameron Smith, Lucas Herbert and a host of other outstanding players all coming to Kingston Heath, it\u2019s shaping up to be a very special Australian Open.\u201d<\/p>\n
PGA of Australia chief executive Gavin Kirkman said Theegala would add extra interest to a special event on the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cSahith will be a very welcome visitor to our shores as a professional for the first time,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will give him an awesome experience which we hopes to many return visits.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sahith Theegala is the latest international star to join the entry list for the\u00a0Capital.com\u00a0Australian Open, with the PGA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":924968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,371115,118461,163413,755,182916,325134,163416,125850,85],"class_list":["post-924967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-capital-com-australian-open","tag-dp-world-tour","tag-gavin-kirkman","tag-golf","tag-james-sutherland","tag-kingston-heath-golf-club","tag-pga-tour-of-australasia","tag-sahith-theegala","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924967","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=924967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/924968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}