What the PGA Tour's surprise new arrangement with the Australian Open potentially means for global golf

SYDNEY — The famed Australian Open announced Tuesday that it would fall under the auspices of an expanding relationship between the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour after fielding significant interest from LIV Golf.

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The Australian Open announced it was extending its co-sanctioning agreement with the DP World Tour for three years. The 2026 Australian Open will be played at Kingston Heath on the famed Melbourne Sandbelt in December with Rory McIlroy the headliner for a second straight year.

More significantly, perhaps, the event revealed a historic partnership PGA Tour within the announcement. Never before had the PGA Tour formally partnered with the governing body, Golf Australia. Sources told Golf Digest that the PGA Tour will support the Australian Open in several ways, including financially. The release detailed that the tournament will receive a “significant” boost in prize money from the 2027 edition.

There will also be an encouragement for PGA Tour pros to tee up in Australia.

With three tours backing the event founded in 1904, the purse is set to grow from the AUD $2 million (US $1.33 million) that was offered at Royal Melbourne last year when McIlroy was among those who teed up. Exactly how much is yet to be determined.

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The DP World Tour co-sanctions 17 national opens around the world. The Australian Open’s list of past champions includes McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Greg Norman, Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer.

“To have a national open of the stature of the [Capital.com] Australian Open amongst that number and to have it commit to us for another three years is great news, and further illustrates the strength of the partnership we enjoy with Golf Australia and the PGA Challenger Tour of Australasia,” Ben Cowen, chief tournament and operations officer for the DP World Tour, said in a statement.

“Today’s news also reinforces the Strategic Alliance we enjoy with the PGA Tour and the opportunity to work with them alongside the Australian organisations to help grow the stature of this tournament globally is an exciting one.”

All of this is interesting in the context of LIV’s approach to the Australian Open. National Opens have been part of LIV’s future plans. CEO Scott O’Neil said, in April, that “we are looking to blend a version of LIV and the national Opens, the great national Opens around the world. We think they're the most underappreciated, undermarketed, underdeveloped assets in golf, and the reason is it gets us on the ground to grow the game of golf.”

O’Neil wasn’t wrong on the national opens front. Months before that, Augusta National and the R&A jointly announced that the winners of six national Opens around the world—the Australian Open, Scottish Open, South African Open, Spanish Open, Japan Open and Hong Kong Open—would receive a place in the 2026 Masters field under new invitation criteria, as well as qualifying for the 154th Open Championship at Royal Birkdale.

In February, at LIV Golf Adelaide, O’Neil held a meeting with Golf Australia chief James Sutherland. Had the Australian Open partnered with LIV, the tournament purse would have surged, and a group of the league’s stars likely would have added it to their schedule. There were discussions about the possibility of moving the Australian Open from its typical early December slot to the week before or after the highly successful LIV Golf Adelaide, which has been held in February.

But with LIV Golf’s future uncertain given Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund no longer funding the league after 2026, the Australian Open continuing its partnership with the DP World Tour—and creating a new one with the PGA Tour—was a logical move.

The development is also relevant to the ongoing discussions between the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour to continue their Strategic Alliance.

The Australian Open is part of an effort to clear the stage for the DP World Tour to shine in the last four months of the year. From early fall, the circuit moves through continental Europe—with treasured tournaments such as the Irish Open, BMW PGA at Wentworth and Spanish Open—and into the Middle East for its season finals. It quickly moves onto Australia in late November for the beginning of the new DP World Tour season which kicks off with the Australian Open and PGA.

Says Sutherland: “This agreement with the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia strengthens the global relevance of the championship and gives us another important platform to keep growing the event year-on-year.”

Sources indicate that shining a brighter light on the DP World Tour in that window is among the objectives discussed as DP World Tour and PGA Tour officials talk daily, and formally meet weekly. The aim is to extend the Strategic Alliance created in 2020 (and enhanced in 2022).

Those involved in the discussions include, from the DP World Tour side, CEO Guy Kinnings, as well as Cowen, chief revenue and content officer, Richard Bunn, and chief strategy and finance officer, Jonny Hine. On the PGA Tour’s end, that includes CEO Brian Rolapp, chief commercial officer, Dhruv Prasad, chief legal officer, Neera Shetty, and senior vice president of international, Christian Hardy.

The centerpiece of the alliance is that the top 10 points earners on the DP World Tour each season are given cards on the PGA Tour for the following season, while the agreement also includes the PGA Tour owning a 40 percent stake in European Tour Productions as well as boosting prize purse purses and several co-sanctioned events including the Scottish Open.

“[The PGA Tour is] thrilled with this agreement between our Strategic Alliance partners, the DP World Tour and the Capital.com Australian Open,” Hardy said. “The Capital.com Australian Open remains one of the most prestigious events in global golf, and our members have long valued the opportunity to compete in Australia. We look forward to continuing to build on this relationship in the years ahead.”

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