When Jiyai Shin holed out from the scrub next to the fourth fairway for eagle en route to her Australian Open romp, you had to be there to see it.
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The sensational shot wasn’t a “you had to see it to believe it moment”, you literally had to be on course, and on the fourth hole, because the leaders teed off two hours before any TV broadcast of the national Open began.
It was another issue for the dual gender event which remains in limbo as players wrestle with the timing, the course set-up and the lingering angst about such revered titles being played as a one-two punch for purely economic reasons.
Golf Australia boss James Sutherland, who has spent time this week talking with “many players and their representatives” conceded as much, with no capacity to determine what the event looks like going forward.
But he said the simple idea the tournaments could be “split up” and run as individual events, defied economic logic.
“It’s no secret that some of our leading men’s players don’t like the format, but they like the date. And on the flip side, some of our leading female players don’t like the date, but like the format,” he said on Sunday.
“And so the simple answer to that is to separate the two events at different times … but it’s not quite that easy.
“In the cold, hard light of day, we need to consider what we do in the best interest of Australian golf and make good decisions around that.
“There’s a whole lot of very, very important stakeholders that bring this event together and make it economically viable and financially sustainable, but also sustainable in terms of getting the outcomes we want that need to be consulted and work with along the way.”
Cam Smith, clearly the biggest name in Australian golf going by the hordes who got up to follow him from 7am on Sunday, and were on hand for a stunning closing hole birdie, can’t commit to next year’s event, whatever it may look like, for family reasons at this stage.
But having made clear his thoughts that the set-up catered too much to the female event, thoughts echoed by his LIV teammates Lucas Herbert and Marc Leishman, and with the words of Adam Scott that the Australian Open is “not the place” to experiment with two tournaments at the same time, ringing like alarm bells, big decisions loom.
Tournament organisers are in charge of the TV production, paid jointly by Golf Australia and the DP World Tour, which co-sanctions the event but can only afford a five-hour broadcast, which meant a 1pm Sunday start.
“I’d love to live in a perfect world. Unfortunately, golf doesn’t exist in a perfect world,” Sutherland said.
“Golf is probably the hardest sport in the world to broadcast. We get that it’s probably the most expensive sport in the world to broadcast, and if you don’t get significant revenues as rights fees, and you earn the right for that, because you earn the right with eyeballs, that it’s very hard to reciprocate that with investment.”
Sutherland said “more people than ever” are playing golf, and the on-course crowds were good, as they were in Sydney last year, despite the absence of any true international heavyweight names, in either the men’s or women’s event, and Scott, with his non-attendance becoming more of a statement than a fatigue issue in light of his comments.
Both he and Smith have made their positions on what the event should look like going forward clear. Tournament officials, however, have not.
There are a lot of conversations being had, a lot of questions being asked, but not a lot of answers available as the Australian Open fights for its survival.
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