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The Victoria Golf Club and Kingston Heath Golf
Club will share hosting duties for the first two days with the
former the sole venue at the weekend.
Fields will be set at 144 players for both tournaments and the
prize fund of A$3.4 million ($2.41 million) would be shared
equally between the men and women, organisers added.
"This truly is a coup for Australian golf," Golf Australia chief
executive James Sutherland said in a news release.
"It presents a great opportunity for the game and will take the
two Open championships to another level."
The Australian Open, which was started in 1904 and counts the
likes of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Peter Thomson among
its former winners, will be co-sanctioned by the European Tour
for the first time.
More recent winners included former world number ones Rory
McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Adam Scott but the difficulties with
getting marquee names to travel down to Australia were
compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The last two editions were cancelled because of the global
health crisis, the first time the tournament had not been
contested outside the two World Wars.
The year's tournament, which will take place from Dec. 1-4, will
mark a return to Melbourne for the first time in two decades.
The Women's Australian Open, first played in 1974, was last held
in Adelaide in 2020, when former world number one Inbee Park won
the title.
($1 = 1.4083 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Richard Pullin)
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