Golf officials hope to restore the Australian Masters to its former glory after the one-time flagship event was canned for 2016.
Despite Australian superstars Jason Day and Adam Scott dominating the US PGA Tour this year and the country’s talent pool enjoying unprecedented depth, the Masters has been removed from the summer program.
First played in 1979 and won six times by the great Greg Norman, the Masters has been on the wane for several years with the industry abuzz for months with talk of its demise.
The tournament – traditionally held at Huntingdale in Melbourne and part of Australian golf’s so-called Triple Crown along with the Australian Open and PGA – has run at a loss for the past two years.
Scott’s regular appearances have masked its decline, with IMG finally pulling the pin on Wednesday.
“As part of IMG’s ongoing evolution of its golf events business, the company is in the process of reimagining (sic) its Australian Masters event to ensure the delivery of a world-class experience,” David Rollo, vice president and director of golf for IMG Australia and New Zealand said in a statement.
“To best execute a change of this scale, IMG today announced that the Australian Masters will not be played in 2016.
“IMG will unveil its new plans for the event in the coming months.”
Apart from Norman, champion in 1981, 83, 84, 87, 89 and 1990, the Masters honour roll features Tiger Woods, fellow international stars Ian Poulter, Justin Rose, Colin Montgomerie and Mark O’Meara and a who’s who of modern-day Australian golf including Robert Allenby, Stuart Appleby, Aaron Baddeley, Ian Baker-Finch, Peter Senior, Craig Parry and Peter Lonard.
Most recently, Scott wowed crowds with his successful title defence in 2013 to add the garish yellow jacket to the green jacket he won for winning golf’s most famous Masters at Augusta in 2013.
Johnno
Guest
I enjoyed Peter Senior's win last year. He brought back the interest, sad day for OZ Golf.
no one in particular
Roar Guru
No loss. Pays overs to attract a couple of internationals not really interested at the end of the season, and then one or two others in the top 100 turn up Melbourne will host the World Cup later this year and the Presidents Cup in 2019, which will have far better fields
Geoff Parkes
Expert
Yeah Paddy, this is sad news, ironically at a time when Australia's top players are performing so well. But the most recent Masters was an ordinary event, the field was very skinny and somebody will have taken a severe financial haircut - so no surprise that the pin has been pulled. The glory days of a competitive local tour are long gone, the Aust Open will survive but the best we will do outside of that are irregular co-sanctioned European Tour events or a special world event. You only have to look at the European Tour and PGA Tour schedules, they have engulfed the pre and post Xmas space that once belonged to Australia. These tours are so competitive that players can't afford to do anything which potentially jeopardises their ranking. And the guys at the top, who aren't under that pressure, are too expensive.
Patrick Effeney
Editor
Wow... This is huge. I feel like the Aussie open has been going along very well, at least that's the message I've been getting. Big loss though!