VicOpen added to European Tour for 2019
Australia’s fastest-growing golf tournament, the VicOpen, is to become a fully fledged European event from 2019.
Golf Victoria announced on Tuesday that the men’s section of the tournament at 13th Beach would
become a European Tour event, to be played in February next year and backed up against the Super
Sixes tournament in Perth, also European.
This gives European players a swing of events to encourage them to make the trip Down Under.
The Australian PGA Championship also is a European Tour event.
The women’s section of the VicOpen was already European; it has been a co-sanctioned event by
Australian Ladies Professional Golf and the Ladies European Tour.
Golf Victoria had to satisfy stringent criteria to win European status, including a bumping up of the
prizemoney.
Next year the men’s and women’s events will be worth $1.5 million each, a total of $3 million.
When the tournament was shifted to 13th Beach in 2013, the prizemoney was just $300,000, and the
event has won widespread plaudits for its coinciding men’s and women’s tournaments with the
fields playing in amongst each other.
GV chief executive Simon Brookhouse said the VicOpen was on track to become “one of Australia’s
biggest sporting events”.
The VicOpen is slotted in for 7-10 February next year.