Ryder Cup star Nicolai H\u00f8jgaard confirmed for Australian PGA Championship and Australian Open<\/a><\/p>\nThis year\u2019s Open will be played at the world-renowned Kingston Heath Golf Club from December 3-6.<\/p>\n
In 2025, Neergaard-Petersen was locked alongside Smith heading to the 72nd hole, and then produced a remarkable up-and-down from thick rough beside the 18th green, holing a clutch par putt under enormous pressure.<\/p>\n
The Australian star narrowly missed his chance to force a playoff, handing the 26-year-old a career-defining victory and a trip to his first Masters at Augusta National, as well as a start in the recently completed Open Championship.<\/p>\n
Neergaard-Petersen will now return to Melbourne\u2019s famed Sandbelt, with the opportunity to become the first player since Peter Lonard in 2004 to successfully defend the Australian Open title.<\/p>\n
\u201cWinning the Australian Open was one of the biggest moments of my career and it\u2019s a week I\u2019ll never forget,\u201d Neergaard-Petersen said. \u201cEverything about my last trip to Australia exceeded my expectations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know how difficult it is to win the Australian Open, so to come back as defending champion is a real honour. I\u2019ll have great memories from last year, and I\u2019m sure more will come back when I return to Melbourne, but once the tournament starts the focus will be on trying to earn the right to lift the Stonehaven Cup again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Golf Australia chief executive James Sutherland said Neergaard-Petersen\u2019s return was a major boost for the championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cRasmus produced one of the great Australian Open victories at Royal Melbourne last year,\u201d Sutherland said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe showed enormous composure under huge pressure in the final round, in front of a massive crowd on the famous 18th hole of the Composite course, demonstrating exactly why the Australian Open remains one of the game\u2019s great tests.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re delighted to welcome our defending champion back and look forward to seeing him attempt to join an exclusive group of players to successfully defend the Stonehaven Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neergaard-Petersen joins 2026 major winners Rory McIlroy and Ryan Fox plus Joaquin Niemann, Corey Conners, Sahith Theegala, Daniel Hillier, Carlos Ortiz, Sebastian Munoz and Josele Ballester as major international names in the field for Kingston Heath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Photo: Andy Cheung\/Getty Images] Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen will return to defend his Capital.com Australian Open title in December, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,371115,118461,755,122462,182916,325134,163416,163418,85],"class_list":["post-952946","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-golf","tag-golf-australia","tag-james-sutherland","tag-kingston-heath-golf-club","tag-pga-tour-of-australasia","tag-rasmus-neergaard-petersen","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952946","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=952946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}