THE FIRST OPEN
The Wills Australian Ladies Open was first played at Victoria Golf Club in 1974, with Japan’s Chako Higuchi beating local Penny Pulz by three shots. Prize money was $10,000 with Higuchi’s share $2000. This year the field will compete for a share of $US1.3 million with $195,000 going to the winner.
THE WINNERS
There have been 19 winners of the 25 Opens. Karrie Webb holds the tournament record of five wins (2000, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2014). The only other multiple winners with two each are England’s Laura Davies (2004, 2009) and Taiwan’s Yani Tseng (2010, 2011).
QUALITY
The winners of the Australian Open come from nine different nations and have won 41 majors between them.
THE NATIONS
Australia leads the way with seven wins, from USA with four, Sweden three, two each to Scotland, England, New Zealand, Taiwan and Japan and one to South Korea.
THE COURSES
There have been 14 courses play host to the Women’s Australian Open with Royal Adelaide staging the event for the second time this year. Yarra Yarra in Melbourne has held the most Opens, seven in a row between 1995 and 2002.
RECORD SCORES
Karrie Webb holds the tournament record score of 22-under, her 270 total coming on the par 73 layout of Yarra for her first Open win in 2000. Her final round was a nine-under par 64. The tournament’s highest winning score was 289, when the Open was held at Royal Melbourne for the first time in 2012. Jessica Korda was one of six players locked at three under par in the largest playoff of any Australian tournament, winning on the second sudden-death hole.
PLAYOFFS
The monster play-off of 2012 involved Korda, Stacy Lewis, Julieta Granada, Brittany Lincicome, So Yeon Ryu and Hee Kyung Seo. That was the fifth playoff in the Open’s history. Australian Jan Stephenson defeated American Pat Bradley on the fourth sudden-death hole in the 1977 Open, which had been shortened to 36 holes because of rain. In 1995 Swede Liselotte Neumann won in a three-hole sudden-death play-off with countrywoman Annika Sorenstam and American Jane Geddes. Webb had missed a spot in that play-off by just one shot but in 2002 she defeated Norwegian Suzann Pettersen on the first hole of sudden death. And Webb had to go three extra holes to beat Jiyai Shin at Kingston Heath in 2008.
TOURNAMENT OF FIRSTS
The 2012 Open was Jessica Korda’s first win as a professional, with Sweden’s Annika Sorenstam (1994), Catriona Matthew (1996) and Mhairi McKay (2003) also registering their first professional victories in the Open.
RUNNERS-UP
Rachel Hetherington’s second place to Sorenstam was the first of three occasions in which she finished runner-up in her national Open. The others were in 2000 behind Karrie Webb and 2004 behind Laura Davies. In addition to their multiple wins, Webb and Davies have also finished second twice, the Australian in 1996 and 2001 and the Briton in 2003 and 2010. Jiyai Shin, winner in 2013 has also finished second twice in 2008 and 2011.
THE BOWL
The trophy for the Open, the Patricia Bridges Bowl, is named in honour of Australia’s most revered women’s golf official, who served three terms as President of the Australian Ladies Golf Union. In an administrative career spanning four decades, Patricia Bridges OBE was instrumental in the establishment of the Women’s Australian Open in the 1970s. In 2006 she became the first life member of Golf Australia.
THE SALVER
The leading amateur in the Open receives the Silver Salver. World number one Lydia Ko was leading amateur in 2011, 2012 and 2013 before winning as a pro in 2015. Australia’s top ranked player Minjee Lee was leading amateur in 2014.